Some of the country’s biggest tech titans descended on Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, meeting behind closed doors for hours with members of the U.S. Senate to discuss artificial intelligence — though some lawmakers lamented the private nature of the talks.
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Congress is notoriously slow when it comes to advancing legislation, concerning experts who say legislative intervention is needed quickly to get a handle on the challenges AI poses, including how companies are using it, how they are collecting data, and how they are profiting from it.
“I think what Congress ought to be doing, is keeping in mind that the promises they're making right now, are never going to line up with reality, the future of this technology is going to bend towards money, it's going to bend towards wherever the revenue streams are,” said David Karpf, associate professor of media and public affairs at The George Washington University.
“The hard questions we should be asking right now are, what are the revenue models of this going to be? And what sorts of behaviors from the companies is that going to encourage,” Karpf asked. “And if those behaviors are bad for us as a society, then we ought to regulate them first rather than waiting and then trying to fix it later.”