There Ought To Be A Law!: Why Congress Needs To Regulate AI

While there is no doubt that AI is a transformative and extremely useful technology; there is also a lot to well-founded concern about how it is being deployed, where the resources needed to support its proliferation are coming from, and who is in charge of ensuring that it won’t destroy our economy, democracy, and global security. In Ohio, a number of cities in our area, including Cleveland, Berea, Twinsburg, and North Ridgeville, have put a moratorium on the construction of new data centers, because citizens are worried about issues including noise, pollution, power outages, and electricity price hikes. Citizens are also questioning the cost and wisdom of deals such as former Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich’s 40 year, 100 percent state sales tax exemptions, for Amazon, Google, and Meta, which never came up for public discussion or debate when they were negotiated between 2014, and 2018. But today we’re going to focus not just on the increasingly expensive effects of AI expansion at the state level, but also on how the lack of effective federal AI regulation could affect our national security, as illustrated by recent policy changes and reversals related to leading AI developer, Anthropic. Listen now as I discuss the federal government’s chaotic and contradictory approach to that company’s incredibly powerful and sophisticated AI models, and what that could mean going forward, with Brennan Center For Justice Senior Counsel and Manager, Amos Toh, who recently co-authored a report called “The Business of Military AI”, in which he argues that a lack of oversight and regulation could lead to the loss of both civil liberties, and lives.