To Legislate on AI, Schumer Should Start with the Basics

Justin Hendrix is CEO and Editor of Tech Policy Press. Paul M. Barrett is Deputy Director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) Launches SAFE Innovation in the AI Age at CSIS, June 21, 2023. Source Co-published at Just Security. Last Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) unveiled his SAFE Innovation Framework, a set of policy objectives for an “all-hands-on-deck effort” to contend with artificial intelligence (AI). He called this a “moment of revolution” that will lead to “profound, and dramatic change,” and invoked experts who “predict that in just a few years the world could be wholly unrecognizable from the one we live in today.” With all the hype following the release of generative AI systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, it’s no surprise that U.S. policymakers are keen to generate shiny new legislative proposals. To his credit, Sen. Schumer is calling for a serious, systematic approach to set priorities and develop legislation that preserves what he calls “our north star – innovation.” But while the “Insight Forums” he proposes to convene this fall will no doubt be interesting, the reality is that most of what Congress needs to do is fairly basic – and it can take these steps today. In a new report from New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, “Safeguarding AI: Addressing the Risks of Generative Artificial Intelligence,” we argue that the U.S. government should address AI first by applying existing consumer protection, competition, and…To Legislate on AI, Schumer Should Start with the Basics