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Analysis: Why a decade of doomsday warnings failed to slow AI race
Donald Trump is facing a rare backlash from the US Congress as Democrats and some Republicans push for guardrails on the world's most powerful AI companies.
Concerns over the dangerous potential of AI reached fever pitch this week after tech leaders sounded the alarm over the rapid advancement of the technology and its potential threat to humanity.
Trump dismissed the anxieties on Monday, describing them as a "HOAX" and "conspiracy" and insisting on social media: "The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!"
But the 80-year-old president, who has sidelined Congress on numerous issues during his second term, looks increasingly isolated as members of both major parties acknowledged the risks and expressed a desire to act before it was too late.
Don Beyer , a Democratic congressman from Virginia, said: "History will look very poorly on that tweet. He's not paying attention - or he's paying attention to the wrong people. He's being really foolish: not the first time he's been really foolish but perhaps catastrophically foolish in this case."
Recent surveys by the University of Maryland's Program for Public Consultation found 85% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans want a new federal agency to monitor and regulate AI; and 82% of Democrats and 78% of Republicans favour government safety tests for AI making critical decisions.
While many politicians agree on the need to act, they are divided on what government intervention should look like and how far it should go. Some fear a pause on AI development could allow China to take the lead in the AI race and undermine national security.
Beyer called for Congress to stay in session instead of breaking for the midterm elections to work on AI legislation that has already been introduced. "The first thing that I'm very certain of is that the industry shouldn't be allowed to regulate themselves; history doesn't support that at all," he said.
"Especially when they're making so much money, there will be absolutely no incentive to regulate themselves at a less profit. If we look at medicines or childcare workers or automobile emissions and safety, all throughout our economy, we have regulatory bodies that keep us safe and promote the common good and allow businesses to be profitable. We need something like that."
View image in fullscreen Protesters in San Francisco call on AI companies to pause development. Photograph: Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters The flurry of debate follows warnings last week from three Anthropic researchers that AI could destroy humanity within the next decade. Recent disclosures from several AI companies that their models hacked into outside organizations during botched safety tests have also raised alarm about potential cybersecurity risks, with Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, claiming in an essay that in six to 12 months a "swarm" of AI agents could attack the entire internet and cause hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.
While AI executives have issued their own warnings about the risks from their products, public backlash against the industry and pressure on lawmakers to rein in AI firms have also been mounting throughout the year. The rapid build-out of data centers has generated nationwide protests and become a prominent midterm elections issue , while the tech lobby has spent millions in an attempt to influence political campaigns and shape proposed legislation.
The viral panic over AI's potential existential threat this past week has intensified the longstanding debate over the technology, which so far has resulted in much political handwringing but only a patchwork of attempts at regulation. Many AI experts, regardless of whether they agree on the merits of the Anthropic researchers' warnings, see this moment as a unique opportunity.
Amba Kak, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute and a former senior adviser on AI for the Federal Trade Commission, said: "You never waste a crisis is an old and well-worn adage in policy land. We're looking at a really important policy opportunity and a policy window."
AI industry leaders have also suggested that they are open to increased oversight and the formation of some kind of standards body, while Amodei's letter advocated for international cooperation with states like China akin to cold war-era arms limitation treaties. Many AI regulation advocates are skeptical of industry proposals , however, arguing that AI companies are attempting to undercut strict government oversight and set their own terms.
Reporting synthesized and verified under Nexvoro.tech editorial guidelines. Full primary records referenced via Google News US Nation & Law.
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