Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who organized the private forum on Capitol Hill as part of a push to legislate artificial intelligence, said he asked everyone in the room -- including almost two dozen tech executives, advocates and skeptics -- whether government should have a role in the oversight of artificial intelligence, and"every single person raised their hands, even though they had diverse views," he said.
Other executives attending the meeting were Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Musk said the meeting"might go down in history as being very important for the future of civilization."Congress has a lackluster track record when it comes to regulating new technology, and the industry has grown mostly unchecked by government in the past several decades.
"AI is not going away, and it can do some really good things or it can be a real challenge," Rounds said. In terms of a potential new agency for regulation,"that is one of the biggest questions we have to answer and that we will continue to discuss," Schumer said. Musk said afterward he thinks the creation of a regulatory agency is likely.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he would not attend what he said was a"giant cocktail party for big tech." Hawley has introduced legislation with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to require tech companies to seek licences for high-risk AI systems. In the United States, major tech companies have expressed support for AI regulations, though they don't necessarily agree on what that means. Similarly, members of Congress agree that legislation is needed, but there is little consensus on what to do.