Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said today he’s hopeful that Congress will work together in a bipartisan way to approve between five and 10 meaningful AI-related bills this year, leveraging a proposed House AI working group to help get that job done.
At the State of the Net Conference in Washington, D.C., this morning, Rep. Beyer said that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., are “on the same page” to set up an informal AI working group “soon – this week, next week, [or the] week after” to try and get “four or five, maybe 10, major AI bills done this year.”
“There are 191 different AI bills pending in Congress right now. A lot of them, I think, are actually really good,” Rep. Beyer said. “And one of the core missions is to try to take, of these 191 bills, which ones can we, should we, must we pass this year?”
Among that handful of bills, the congressman said, is the Creating Resources for Every American To Experiment with AI Act of 2023 (CREATE AI Act).
This bipartisan bill looks to make permanent the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot, which officially launched on Jan. 24.
Under the bill, the National Science Foundation (NSF) would oversee the NAIRR through a program management office. However, an independent non-governmental entity would oversee the day-to-day operations of the NAIRR, including the procurement of computational and data resources needed to do AI research.
Nevertheless, Rep. Beyer warned that it will take more than just one bill to regulate AI and reap its many benefits.
“I’m always suspicious of somebody, any of us, who are vain enough to think we can regulate AI all at once in a really big masterful bill,” Rep. Beyer said.
“The notion that we can act right now, we can act in a bipartisan way, we can pick the best five or 10 bills out of these 191 that make a difference, and then build on that in the years to come will be a very healthy thing,” he concluded.
Deirdre Mulligan, the principal deputy chief technology officer within the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), agreed with Rep. Beyer’s warning on regulation.
“We can’t just regulate our way through this world,” Mulligan said. “If we actually want to build our future in a robust, meaningful way that helps us thrive, we actually have to view the design of technology itself as a tool.”
