The impact of artificial intelligence on the job market and high-risk industries was the focus of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) pair of AI insight forums.
Schumer hosted the forums on Wednesday to help his fellow senators acquire a general understanding of the quickly evolving technology by bringing in over two dozen experts who answered questions from attendees. These were the third and fourth AI insight forums since Schumer announced the series over the summer and are designed to help Congress expedite the drafting of legislation so that the United States has guardrails for the technology in the near term.
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The Senate was "deeply interested in exploring the potential for AI to do good but also to address any gaps that may appear," Jason Oxton, CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council, told the Washington Examiner. Oxton was one of the speakers at the second session.
The event mostly drew staffers, as senators had to vote on several amendments to a three-bill spending package being considered in the Senate. The four hosts, Sens. Schumer, Mike Rounds (R-SD), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), and Todd Young (R-IN), attended the second event along with an estimated 10 other members over the extended period, Oxton estimates.
The first event, which occurred Wednesday morning, featured Microsoft's Washington, D.C., education policy head, Allyson Knox, Indeed CEO Chris Hyams, and Mastercard executive Michael Fraccaro. The event also featured experts on both sides of the political spectrum, including Michael R. Strain, resident scholar at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, and Patrick Gaspard, president of the left-leaning Center for American Progress.
The speakers told attendees to make sure they have worker input and to make the technology worker friendly, Schumer told reporters after the event. This includes realizing the need for human input when generating work schedules or financial charts, as well as avoiding the complete replacement of employees with AI.
The second event focused on "high impact" issues such as finance, healthcare, and "how AI developers and deployers can best mitigate potential harms." The event featured Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That, Hugging Face Chief Ethics Officer Margaret Mitchell, and Google Director for Responsible AI Tulsee Doshi.
The panel spoke about several matters but focused on protecting finance, healthcare, and critical infrastructure like energy and water.
Ton-That's presence drew some controversy due to criticism that Clearview had breached people's privacy in its effort to train AI on faces in the public without consent. "Inviting Clearview to a discussion about how to regulate artificial intelligence is like inviting an arsonist to a meeting about fire safety," Evan Greer, director of the left-leaning tech advocacy group Fight for the Future, said in a statement. "There couldn't be a more egregious example of a company with a business model that is fundamentally incompatible with basic human rights and responsible use of AI technology."
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Clearview did not respond to requests for comment from the Washington Examiner. Schumer did not respond to questions about Clearview's presence.
The first two Insight forums focused on a general understanding of AI, with experts such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appearing before the audience. The second event, which featured Future of Life Institute founder Max Tegmark and Andreessen Horowitz founder Marc Andreesen, focused more on the keys to "transformative innovation."