Schumer Announces Framework for Regulating AI ‘Revolution’

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks to the press after meeting President Joe Biden and other leaders at the White House on on May 16, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

Congress will work to develop a comprehensive framework for guiding artificial intelligence (AI) development and legislation, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Schumer says that the effort is necessary to safeguard U.S. security and values in an age that will be defined by enormous technological and social changes.

“We come together at a moment of revolution,” Schumer said during a June 21 talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “[It is] not one of weapons or political power, but a revolution in science and understanding that will change humanity.”

To that end, Schumer said that lawmakers will invite top AI experts to Congress in the coming months for a series of forums on the issue of AI, innovation, and regulation. The result, he hoped, would be to ensure U.S. prosperity in the face of  “world-altering” technological development.

“The age of AI is here, and it is here to stay,” he said.

“The question is, what role [do] Congress and the federal government have in this new revolution? Are we capable of playing a proactive role in promoting AI’s growth?”

Government to Direct AI Development

While the planned forums between Congress and myriad AI experts will help to inform the size and scope of government regulation, Schumer is clear that he intends for government to direct the evolution of the technology.

“If [the] government doesn’t step in, who will fill its place?” he said.

“Individuals in the private sector can’t do the work of protecting our country.”

The New York Democrat’s firm stance on the government’s role in AI development comes amid an increasingly ambitious set of debates throughout Congress about the nature of the technology. Congressional leaders have frequently questioned whether AI would lead to a beneficial revolution, such as that brought about by the printing press, or a threatening one, such as that brought about by the atomic bomb.

Accordingly, Schumer said that Congress would seek to develop a plan for AI development that encourages competition, while deterring the use of AI by malign actors, be they foreign or domestic.

“In the hands of foreign adversaries, especially autocracies, or domestic rogue groups ... the dangers of AI could be extreme,” he said.

“We need to do everything we can to install guardrails that make sure these groups cannot use our advances in AI for illicit and bad purposes.”

AI would need to be developed in accordance with the democratic values that underpin the United States, lest the technology’s trajectory be dictated by authoritarian powers such as communist China, Schumer said.

“If we don’t program these algorithms to be aligned with our values, they could be used to undermine our democratic foundations, especially our electoral processes.

“The Chinese Communist Party [CCP], which has little regard for the norms of democratic governance, could leap ahead of us and set the rules of the game for AI.”

Schumer called his proposed plan the “SAFE Framework,” as it would seek to implant security, accountability, respect for democratic foundations, and explainability into the standards of AI development.

By forging consensus on these issues, he said, the United States could guard itself “against doomsday scenarios.”

“There are those who fear AI’s immense power and conclude it’s better to turn back. To go no further down this unknown road. We all know it’s not that simple, and it’s not that easy,” Schumer said.

“The AI revolution is going to happen with us or without us.”

AI at Center of US–China Military Competition

Schumer’s speech comes at a moment of heightened tensions between the United States and communist China, with each power seeking to leverage AI toward military advantage.

The CCP is investing heavily in a broad array of new technologies, with AI foremost among them, and seeking to build AI-enabled lethal autonomous systems for use in future wars. The regime also is investing in developing AI capabilities related to military decision-making and command and control.

Both efforts are key to the CCP’s goal of “intelligentization,” a transformation of warfare through the mass integration of AI, automation, and big data.

As such, some members of Congress believe that AI will be a determining factor in deciding the outcome of the new cold war between China and the United States, and have questioned to what extent regulation will be useful in achieving a beneficial end to the competition.

Speaking earlier in the month, for example, Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) said the United States may need to embrace less regulation of AI technology in favor of accelerating its advanced development.

“I would take an unregulated or less-than-ideally regulated Western-developed AI, rather than a Chinese Communist Party techno-dictatorship-developed AI that has the potential to dominate both militarily and economically, if those are our two bad options,” Waltz said during a June 5 talk with the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.

“When you put it in the context of the global competition that we’re in ... that the Chinese Communist Party has entered into a cold war with the United States and is explicit in its aim to replace the liberal Western-led world order ... and that AI could be an incredibly powerful tool for them to achieve that end, then it seems to me that tapping the brakes could actually be incredibly dangerous.”