Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Today’s First-Ever Classified All-Senate Briefing On Artificial Intelligence

Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor about the first-ever classified Senate briefing on artificial intelligence and developing AI legislation.. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here.  

For Congress to work on artificial intelligence is to enter uncharted territory. AI is not like other issues Congress deals with – it is not like appropriations or health care or defense, where we have decades of experience to lean on. Quite the contrary: from a legislative view, we are starting very close to step one when it comes to AI.

So today, the Senate is taking the next step in our effort to learn about AI, so we can be ready to act. Later this afternoon, we will hold the first-ever classified all-Senate briefing on national security implications of AI. It will be our second all-senate briefing on this issue. Close to 70 senators attended the last one and I hope we will get similar attendance today.

We’ll be briefed by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, and other top experts in AI from our defense and our intelligence agencies.

Today’s classified briefing is crucial, because of all the issues AI will impact, national security may well be the most consequential. In the hands of autocrats, or foreign adversaries, or domestic rogue actors interested in political chaos or financial gain, the dangers of AI could be extreme.

But AI could also become one of our greatest tools for keeping Americans safe, for predicting and intercepting attacks on the homeland, and for adding unprecedented sophistication to our cybersecurity and for protecting our elections. So we have a responsibility, a real responsibility, to educate ourselves on these matters.

Finally, these briefings are just part of a larger effort to learn more about AI and prepare the Senate to take action. Last month, I laid out my SAFE Innovation Framework for AI, a way for Congress to balance the urgent need to promote American innovation in AI, while making sure it’s done in a safe and responsible way.

Last month I also announced that this fall I will invite the top AI experts to come to Congress and convene a series of first-ever AI Insight Forums, for a new and unique approach to developing legislation.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about AI. We need outside help if we want to ensure Congressional action is effective, responsible, and promotes innovation in a safe way.

So these insight forums will bring the best of the best to Congress. Our jobs as legislators will be to listen and learn as much as we can so we can translate these ideas into action.

And we are getting a very positive response from those we are asking to participate in the forums, top people in the field, and in areas like intellectual property, like fair facial recognition that we need to look for, for guard rails. So, the positive response we're getting means that we expect these Insight Forums to do just what they're intended to do – yield new insights on the issue. And today’s briefing likewise represents an important step in our efforts to learn as much about AI as possible.

I look forward to today’s briefing, and I thank Senator Rounds, Senator Heinrich, and Senator Young for their help in making them possible.

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