Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Success Of The Second Bipartisan AI Insight Forum
Washington, D.C. – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding yesterday’s successful, bipartisan Insight Forum on AI. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Yesterday, the Senate held our second bipartisan AI Insight Forum. This one was focused on our north star for AI, and that is innovation.
It was an amazing three hours – we learned so much about all the things we need to do on AI, as well as things we still don’t know.
The biggest takeaway from our AI Insight Forums so far is that government has to be involved on AI, and that was the consensus among everybody yesterday, just as it was a few weeks ago. Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, everyone in between knew that government had to be involved.
But after yesterday’s conversation, I’ll add a few more things we agreed to. First, as you know, at the last forum everyone agreed that the government had to be involved. But after today's forum, there was universal agreement that Congress had to be prepared not just to be involved, but to invest significant resources in AI innovation, both inside the government and outside, helping companies and universities and others because the government can do things in terms of dollar investment that others simply can’t. The awesome power of the federal government and its ability to provide resources is way beyond the capability of any one company, university, etcetera.
One number mentioned yesterday was about $32 billion in nondefense federal spending, which is what the bipartisan National Security Commission on AI said we need in their 2021 report. It doesn’t have to happen all at once, but it’s important we prioritize these investments now and continue over time. Just about everybody in the room agreed that $32 billion is really a floor, not a ceiling. So, we're going to need – if we want to stay number one in AI, if we want to get our arms around it, if we want to make sure the good is maximized and the bad is minimized – we're going to need significant federal dollars.
AI is another reason that we must fully appropriate the funds authorized in the CHIPS and Science Act, and that came up many times. There are many things that we authorized in the CHIPS and Science Act that haven't been appropriated. We have to do those things if we want to stay in the lead economically and in AI.
The second point that was made was that Congress doesn’t have a lot of time to act, because AI moves so fast and is growing in its complexity. We need to be proactive, not reactive. That’s one reason we’ve made these AI Insight Forums a priority.
A third point that was made was our race against the Chinse government. China is not waiting to invest in AI, just as they didn’t wait on science and chips. With the CHIPS and Science bill, we met them, maybe even exceeded them, by putting in some real investment. We must do the same thing with AI, or we fall behind. And many of the speakers noted that if China gains the lead in AI, they will become the number one economy in the world, they will set the values – authoritarian, not democratic values – and Americans will suffer. So, this investment in AI must be done, otherwise, we will fall behind China, something we don't want to do, and both parties agreed that’s the case. And particularly, a point made by some of my Republican colleagues, we'll fall behind on national security. If China gets ahead of us in AI and applies that to national security, and we don't do what we're supposed to do, we will really have some problems. So, that's point three.
And point four, just to reiterate, is that we need innovation. We need the government to help create innovation, both on the transformational side– creating new vistas, unlocking new cures, improving education, strengthening national security, protecting the global food supply –but also, and this is harder, on sustainable innovation. That means to minimize the harms that come from AI, like job loss, racial and gender bias, economic displacement, because if we don’t have some guardrails, the whole thing, the whole AI enterprise, could go off the rails and that would be a real detriment to this country and to our world.
The private sector does a good job on positive, transformational innovation. They need some help. Government needs to be involved, particularly in setting an ecosystem that works, in providing some of the resources to smaller companies so they're not dwarfed by the larger companies. But only the government can provide the guardrails for sustainable innovation. It’s not reasonable to expect all companies to act on their own – even less reasonable that they’d act in concert – even if a few do. The challenge will be a balance between placing guardrails and preserving innovation. It’s a tough challenge, but you know, as Theodore Roosevelt said, we're in the arena. If not us, who? No one will do it.
So again, yesterday was an exciting, illuminative, eye-opening conversation. Thank you to all the Senators who came yesterday, from both sides of the aisle.
And let’s note we are still just at the beginning – we will continue to hold bipartisan AI insight forums in the weeks and months to come, and encourage the relevant committees to begin drawing up bipartisan legislation.
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