Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On This Week’s All Senate Briefing On Artificial Intelligence

Washington, D.C.– Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor highlighting this week’s Senators-only briefing on Artificial Intelligence, the first of three upcoming briefings on AI. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

It’ll be another busy week here in the Senate as we confirm more nominees and address pressing issues like AI.

Tomorrow, the Senate will convene the first of three Senators-only briefings on Artificial Intelligence. The briefings are the first all-Senators briefings ever on AI.

Tomorrow’s briefing, provided by Antonio Torralba of MIT, will focus on the state of AI today, providing an overview of AI, where it is being used right now, what it is currently capable of, and other recent developments. Professor Torralba is one of the top machine-learning experts in the country, someone exceptionally skilled at breaking down all the complexities of AI in an accessible and simple way.

I strongly urge all my colleagues on both sides to attend tomorrow’s briefing, because elected representatives in the twenty-first century cannot ignore AI any more than we can ignore our national security, job creation, or civil liberties.

It’s imperative that we Senators take the time to educate ourselves on AI and its implications, so that we can ensure it becomes a force for human prosperity, while mitigating its very real risks.

I urge my colleagues to attend the two other AI briefings happening in the coming weeks. Our second briefing will focus on where AI is headed in the future and how America can remain a leader in this field.

Our third, classified briefing on AI – the first ever classified Senate briefing on the subject – will focus on how our adversaries will use AI against us, as well as how the DOD and Intelligence Community are using this technology to keep Americans safe.

I look forward to attending the briefing tomorrow, and I thank Senators Rounds, Heinrich, and Young for their work on this issue.

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