WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — Vice President Kamala Harris convened civil rights leaders and consumer advocates at the White House Wednesday to ensure AI tools don’t deepen inequality.
“This is technology that is rapidly developing,” she said.
Harris said it is important to establish protections “knowing that certain people will be targeted based on their socioeconomic status, based on their race, based on their disability.”
According to Harris, there is an urgent need to tackle AI’s risks.
Senators from both sides stressed the same thing following a classified AI briefing Tuesday.
“We have to look into open AI versus competitive AI,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. “We have to look into how you protect intellectual property. We have to look into how our political system doesn’t get poisoned.”
Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said to get ahead of adversaries like China, Congress must act in a matter of months.
“It’s probably one of the hardest tasks Congress has faced but probably one of the very most important,” Schumer said. “And we can’t run away from it.”
Arati Prabhakar, the president’s science advisor, said all of AI’s risks matter.
“We are not going to just cherry-pick which risks matter,” Prabhakar said.
But Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said protecting Americans’ personal data is a good start.
“It shouldn’t be that your credit card history and that your browsing history, your purchases online — none of that stuff should be used as part of generative AI,” Hawley said.