Sen. Schumer: AI Needs Govt Guardrails, and They Can't Be Made in China
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) had a few things to say Thursday morning about what the federal government should be doing to tame AI, but first he had to wait through an uncanny opening act: AI versions of himself.
At a half-day conference hosted by The Washington Post, the senator watched as Post tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler displayed AI-generated images of Schumer aboard the International Space Station, on the surface of Mars, and surrounded by kittens. Then Fowler played an audio clip built using ElevenLabs’ voice-cloning technology in which a convincing rendition of Schumer endorsed fellow New Yorker Spider-Man for President, followed by another in which AI Schumer did the same in Spanish.
IRL Schumer then took the stage, saying “I am the real Chuck Schumer–I promise,” before making a case for government action to direct AI’s possibilities.
“If we don’t have government-imposed guardrails, the lowest common denominator will prevail,” he told his onstage interviewer, Washington Post Live anchor Leigh Ann Caldwell. But a federal role might also extend to investing in either opening AI-training databases to more companies or even in creating them directly: “You need real involvement, federal involvement.”
But that government role can’t result in the US becoming a trailing indicator of AI development, Schumer continued. “China is moving very fast here,” he said. “They're investing lots of money, and they're doing it in a different way. They don't have the same kind of values that we have.”
Citing the longstanding and widespread use of facial-recognition technology in China for both public and private purposes, Schumer said that’s not a future we should want: “If we don't move forward, it will lead to
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