Elon Musk is attending a Senate bipartisan Artificial Intelligence (AI) Insight Forum on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US. The meeting, hosted by Chuck Schumer, is part of his strategy to give Congress more influence over the future of AI.
Elon Musk attends the AI Forum
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer organized a meeting on Wednesday in Capitol Hill of US technology leaders. Names include Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI CEO Elon Musk, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. A Senate bipartisan Artificial Intelligence (AI) Insight Forum was held behind closed doors. There, participants discussed how Congress should establish safeguards in the field of artificial intelligence.
Congress must take action to regulate AI
« For Congress to legislate on artificial intelligence is for us to engage in one of the most complex and important subjects Congress has ever faced, » Schumer said on Tuesday.
Lawmakers now face the question of how to mitigate the dangers of the new technology. In recent months, the space has experienced a boom in investment and consumer adoption following the release of OpenAI ChatGPT. While the development of technology is a positive step, the dangers it brings cannot be ignored. Lawmakers want to protect from potentially dangerous deepfakes, election interference, and attacks on critical infrastructure.
Elon Musk calls for federal department of AI
After the meeting, it became known that Musk called for the creation of a federal department for artificial intelligence. « I think this meeting could go down in history as important to the future of civilization, » Musk told reporters after the forum. He continued, that AI « is potentially harmful to all humans everywhere. »
Musk expressed optimism about the meeting, saying there appeared to be a « strong consensus, » according to CNBC. He thought it likely that a federal artificial intelligence agency could operate similarly to the Federal Aviation Administration or the Securities and Exchange Commission. Musk added that those working in this field must be « proactive while reactive. »
