Ben Werschkul
Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk suggested that muscular action from Washington on artificial intelligence is needed, even "perhaps a Department of AI."
"We've created regulatory agencies before," Musk said Wednesday after attending a gathering in Washington with other tech CEOs who convened to discuss AI, according to video of the comments to reporters.
Musk — who also owns X (formerly known as Twitter) and SpaceX — added that he thought a new government agency could be created in the vein of the Federal Aviation Administration or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the coming years "to insure companies take actions that are safe and in the interests of the general public."
In his own comments after the meeting, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer added that "we came out of that room exhilarated." He said he asked the crowd — assembled from the worlds of business, civil rights, defense, labor, and the arts — if government needed to play a role in regulating AI "and every single person raised their hands."
"That gives us a message here that we have to try to act, as difficult as the process may be," he added.
Other high profile attendees at the event included Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates as well as the CEOs of Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, and IBM. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, another attendee, called it an “unprecedented moment.”
Elon Musk, CEO of X, the company formerly known as Twitter, laughs while speaking to the media after attending a closed-door gathering of leading tech CEOs to discuss the priorities and risks surrounding artificial intelligence. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo)
But both Schumer and Musk and others underlined Wednesday that this week's gathering was only an early step in what could be a long process as Washington tries to get its arms around the new technology.
The options on the table range from a broad approach that regulates AI as a standalone entity — an option Musk alluded to in his comments — to more piecemeal approaches that put the onus for action on existing agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and others to handle different aspects of the sprawling technology.
The debate is likely to rage in the months ahead with it remaining to be seen what business leaders will actually be receptive to when it gets down to specific details. Musk, as one example, has had an often tense relationship with other federal regulators, especially the SEC.
Many experts and business leaders have also been cool on the idea of a new standalone department, with Mark MacCarthy of the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution telling Yahoo Finance earlier this week "a department of artificial intelligence I think would be a big mistake because you can't regulate AI in a single department. It has too many applications."
OpenAI's Altman, another attendee at Wednesday's gathering, has urged caution earlier this year on consolidating too much government power around AI, telling lawmakers in May he was in favor of "regulation that balances incentivizing safety while ensuring that people are able to access the technology’s benefits."
AI regulation has been very much on Washington’s radar in recent months following the widespread public interest in Open AI’s ChatGPT. This week alone, in addition to Schumer’s "AI Insight Forum”, lawmakers are holding three additional hearings on the issue.
Either way, Wednesday's highly anticipated gathering seems to have succeeded in Schumer's goal of kicking off a conversation, with Musk praising Schumer and other Senators for organizing the conference and adding "this meeting may go down in history as being important for the future of civilization."
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