AI is going to change the world — but who will be leading that change? 

Tech’s glitterati converged on Washington D.C., earlier this month to participate in an AI congressional summit produced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, to begin considering an AI regulatory scheme. So, do you prefer Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or Sam Altman deciding your future?   Before you scoff, remember the alternative is a future authored by tech-challenged legislators anxious to build a new AI bureaucracy. Are we in more danger if Congress acts or if it doesn’t?    Today’s AI explosion — more accurately, a convergence of large language machine-trained models — is pointing us in the direction of an AI inflection point that will raise life-altering choices on a scale never before seen. It is increasingly being used to improve cities, fight wars, create safer means of transportation, grow food, enhance health care, redesign how legal outcomes are reached, produce financial results, revolutionize manufacturing, and educate our children. In the future, it may cure cancer just as easily as it may enable oppressive governments to ensnare their citizens in perpetual servitude. China has deployed 300 million facial recognition cameras which, along with mobile mass surveillance apps, are collecting and analyzing vast amounts of citizen data to produce social scores. A low score can earn a trip to a reeducation camp. China and the many countries importing its technology increasingly see AI as a bridge to perpetuate political power.    Tech execs who have come to Washington tell us that what they are doing may eliminate jobs, cultures and humans and ask…AI is going to change the world — but who will be leading that change?