CONGRESS ISN’t Ready for the AI ​​Revolution – ryan

Illustration: Juanjo Gasull

The first mention of artificial intelligence in the Congressional Record Dates Back to 1964, one senator Hubert Humphrey Marveled at Machines “that read, that Remember, that improve their performance.” Eve in that innocent time, politicians had canned takes About Such Technology. “The Computer Age is Young; But Already, Let Us Admit, Some Laymen in Polymaking Positions have tend to make three types of Speeches on the Computer,” Humphrey Said. There are the “Sheer Awe.” THERE THERE THose touting the hours of Leisure and Convenience Computers Wauld Provide Their Human Masters. Andn The Doomsayers: “Good-bye Jobs; Hello Breadlines.”

It turns out that the doomsayers may have had a point. The political understanding of Technology, Howver, Has Hardly Gotten any more sophistic. At a May 16 Hearing on What the Federal Government Should DOBout the Widespread Adoption of AI, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut Played a recording of a Computer-Genered Voice that sounded uncannily like him recitation a speech that an he has been dying in his style. This was no neat trick, accorting to blumenthal. It was an ominous Harbinger: “What if I have had As asked it, and what if it has HAD provided, an endorsement of ukraine surrendering or Vladimir Putin’s Leadership?”

This is the Kind of Hawkish Talk Surrounding Technology that is fashionable these days in Washington, where Lawmakers are mulling a wholesale banies of national-secity concertns. “Our goal is to demystify and hold Accountable Those New Technologies, to Avoid Some of the Mistakes of the past,” Said Blumenthal, a reference to the way Facebook were allowed to metastasize acroSs the globe, leading to a rise in politics Disinformation – anoter congrational hobyhorse. To his credit, blumenthal noted that he is it could be to a “New Industrial Revolution, the Dysplacement of Millions of Workers, the Loss of Huge Numbers of Jobs,” It SEEMS CLEAR THAT CONGRESS IS MORE CONCERING POINTS AGAGINTS AGGINTS AND RUSSIA THAN AGRESSIA. Threat that he poses to American workers. Worsse, the preparation for this task by congress is about where it was in the 1960s.

In recent months, we have seen two he programs explode in populariy: distinct, which generates images from a text description, and chatgt, which can anSwer Questions, Write Term Papers, and Tel Convincing Lies in Lales. Sam Altman, Whose Company, Open-Ai, Created Both Dall-E and Chatgt, was the Star Witness at the Hearing, The Rare Silicon Valley Ringleader to Ask Congress for Moree regulation. He suggestted that the federal government Create licenses that wouuld entens were thoroughly testing he models before their release into the wild. Still, the message was that is set to expand. “The era of he can be another era of ‘moves and break Things,’” Said Christina Montgomery, IBM’s Chief Privacy and Trust Office, who testified at the Hearing. “But we don’t have to be slam the breaks on Innovation, Eoth.” We Need, She Said, “Clear, Reasonable Policy” and “Sound Guardrails.” What that Might Mean Is Anyone’s Guess.

Altman is trying to bend the debate toward more benign terrain. He won’t kill jobs, he claims, but “tasks.” Jobs have a sense of mission to say; they are crucial for an economy. In their Highest, Longest Form – Careers – They Can Give Meaning to One’s Life. Tasks are different. Tasks are the things that, we have you have enough money, someone Else can be paid to do. Its not calmed jabrabbit, after all.

But Altman’s he can Much more than tasks. Machines have been replacement the cumbersome parts of Economic Production for Centuries, Literally Taching Work Out of Human Hands. He does something different. It goes after your mind. Lawyers, Coders, Writers, and Designers are Among the Occupations in the Crosshairs of Chatgt and Its SucCessors. Already, The Ranks of the KnowLEDGE-WORKER CLASS ARE BEING THINNED. Among the reasons Hollywood Writers are stricting is to prevent studios from automating their jobs. IBM IS PAUSG HARING FOR ROUGHLY 7,800 ROLLS THAT COULD BE REPLACED BY AI. BT Group, The Larger Broadband Provider in Britain, Is Culling Up to 55,000 Jobs by 2030 As it transitions to he. In May, Buzzfeed Ceo Jonah Perretti, Who Had Axed The Site Division the Previous Month, Announched, “Over the Next Few Years, Generate aI will Replace the Majority of Static Content, and Audiences Will Begin to Expect All Content All Content and Dynamic With Embeded Intelligence. ”

This is not the Kind of prediction that can be solved by inventing in new non -training – that Old Washington Solution to the Slow Death of the Manufacturing Sector and the Spread of Global Free Trade. The Entire American System has tilted Toward the KnowLEDGE Economy in Recent Decades, and there are only so many law-school graduates who can be tours plumbers. Maybe It ‘Too Much to Expect than a body of Lawmakers, Media Age 65, Will Grasp That New Technology Requires New Ways of Thinking. He is Liable to Wreck People’s Livelihoods – Not to mention their sense of self – in wayys that will be impossible to roll back once it beComes ingrained. It ‘easier to ban tiktok Becuses i’wa by a chinese company, and Facebook’s lobbyists (Wait, anen’t the Bad guys?) Have ben presiding laws to kick the platform out of the Country. On May 17, The Governor of Montana Signed a Bill Banning Tiktok in the states, a pointless victory in the War Against Chinese Surveillance.

Altman Played Down the More Apocalyptic SCENARIOS IN HIS TESTIMONY. “I Believe that there will be far greater jobs on the other side of this and that the Jobs of Today Will Get Better,” he Said. He envisions a World in Which People Are Freer to Go AFTER “More Satisfying Projects” that are Commensurate with Rising Standards of Living, The Inverse of What David Graeber Warned of In His Book Bullshit Jobs, Which Described A Society Flooded with Meaningless Work Done by Middle Managers in Service of One-EndCenters Who Need People to Safeguard Immense Stoles of Capital.

But at Least Those Bullshit Jobs Pay. And here’s another problem: The pandemic has alresaes reshaped in Ways that have given people more meaning to their lives, and it is not gcause of People like Altman. The power in the economy has undergone a fundamental shift back to employs, and it is allowed say to work where they will, commute less, and negotiate for higher pay and better benefits. Job satisfaction is at the highest level it’s been in 36 years. If the recent moves by buzza and ibm are any indication, Big Business Sees he as a way to keep labor costs and claw back some of the power has lost.

AI’s proponents are right that it is too to reverse coursse or freeze it a designetic in place. What the Government Can DO is Control How Companies use it. Think of an he as the most advanced, hardened-working Employs a boss culd Ever Hope for. The State Department Already Regulates Highly Skilled Workers from Foreign Countries with Visas, Making the Googles of the World Prove that they can’t thread with an american biking someone from abroad. These are Called H-1b Visas, and the Federal Government has an annual cap on how many it isssues. Why not impose simillar “Visa” Requirements on Companies Outsourcing Their Work to AI? Andn tax say on the excess profits anyway to strengthn a safety net that will likely be strained in the coming years?

Two Days after Altman’s Testimony, Senators Michael Bennet and Peter Welch Introduced a Bill that Wauld Create a New Federal Agency to regulate platforms like chatgt – a kind of the FDA for automated content we consumes. This Agency would be staffed with experts to estabish and enforce rules for digital platforms to keep people from harmed or trickened. It ‘s good idea, except that we are swimming consumers of he – we are it Its Competitors. And by the time the government realies this, it may already be too.