The guidance released by Schumer’s bipartisan working group encourages committee work to address threats of AI and recommends new funding to boost domestic innovation of AI.
But groups that have been calling for Congress to quickly regulate AI said the guidance doesn’t do enough to address the incoming threats as the industry speeds ahead with advancements.
“We welcome a bipartisan agreement as a beginning towards a transformational future of fairness, justice, and opportunity. But to create a transformative and sustainable nation of opportunity with emerging technologies like AI, we must have a powerful set of preventive guardrails,” Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the Leadership Conference Education Fund, said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the framework’s focus on promoting innovation and industry overshadows the real-world harms that could result from AI systems,” Wiley added.
The guidance, dubbed an “AI Roadmap,” was released by Schumer along with the bipartisan working group he assembled of Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.).
It encouraged $32 billion in nondefense AI funding by 2026 to maintain U.S. competitiveness on AI. But beyond the details about spending, the report largely leaves the rest to Congressional committees and the private sector rather than endorsing or advocating for any specific regulations.
“I don’t know that I read too many legislative proposals in today’s report –– maybe I got that wrong. I did read a lot of ‘send to committee to consider,’” Amba Kak, co-executive director of AI Now, said Wednesday at an AI roundtable discussion with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and other tech and labor advocates.
Schumer said the report released was intended to supplement committee work.
“We’re not kicking the ball down the road. That’s the next logical step. We’re not deferring or delaying. We always thought the committees should be the next logical step, and I believe a good number of them will come out with bipartisan legislation that we can pass — not all of them — but that we can pass before the end of the year,” Schumer said at a press conference Wednesday.
Read a full report at TheHill.com.
