The Democrats have come out on top in the November 3 US midterm elections, and some of them wasted little time in declaring what they would like to do first: take on the tech industry and put the government in charge of AI development.
The comments started appearing on X within a day of the election, with Rep. Yassamin Ansari posting, “Top of the Democratic agenda on day 1 needs to be a pause on advanced AI development, regulation of this out of control industry, and a ban on artificial superintelligence.”
A member of the House Democratic leadership, Rep. Ted Lieu, also quickly got down to business, announcing that the new Congress would be holding hearings on AI, and that “reasonable guardrails” would be introduced around the tech.
Lieu criticized Republicans for allegedly deciding “to let the AI industry run wild.”
It’s the type of regulation that is the problem, not its quantity. The “guardrails” Lieu and others want to put in place are those that would give the authorities the power to decide who can build and use software, and under what conditions.
That is the same type of “regulation” that is present in the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, introduced in the House by Rep. Greg Casar, and in the Senate by Bernie Sanders. The bill is essentially a licensing scheme that would give a newly created cabinet Department of Artificial Intelligence the power to decide which companies can build “advanced” AI.
“Advanced” is defined as AI trained on at least 10^25 operations. Those allowed to build such AI would have to obtain a charter from the department, and then give its secretary access to “systems, staff, and physical premises.”
Flagged systems would be cut off from the internet. Executives who recklessly violate the terms of the bill could end up in prison for up to 20 years, and if a company’s charter is revoked, its assets can be seized.
Reclaim The Net has been tracking this bill and we noted that, “Publishing code and model weights is a form of expression, and this bill puts prior government approval in front of it.”
In the wake of the election, Casar described the results as “the early tremor of a much bigger AI earthquake upending American politics.”
