{"id":244029,"date":"2023-09-11T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T11:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=244029"},"modified":"2023-09-10T09:26:22","modified_gmt":"2023-09-10T08:26:22","slug":"in-ai-regulation-coverage-media-let-us-lawmakers-off-the-hook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/09\/in-ai-regulation-coverage-media-let-us-lawmakers-off-the-hook\/","title":{"rendered":"In AI Regulation Coverage, Media Let US Lawmakers off the Hook"},"content":{"rendered":"

8 Sep 2023 – <\/em>\u201cEveryone Wants to Regulate AI. No One Can Agree How,\u201d Wired <\/b>(5\/26\/23<\/a>) proclaimed earlier this year. The headline resembled one from the New Yorker <\/b>(5\/20\/23<\/a>) published just days prior, reading \u201cCongress Really Wants to Regulate AI, but No One Seems to Know How.\u201d Each reflected an increasingly common thesis within the corporate press: Policymakers would like to place guardrails on so-called artificial intelligence systems, but, given the technology\u2019s novel and evolving nature, they\u2019ll need time before they can take action\u2014if they ever can at all.<\/p>\n

This narrative contains some kernels of truth; artificial intelligence can be complex and dynamic, and thus not always easily comprehensible to the layperson. But the suggestion of congressional helplessness minimizes the responsibility of lawmakers\u2014ultimately excusing, rather than interrogating, regulatory inertia.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Wired (5\/26\/23): \u201cIt\u2019s a giant challenge to strike the right balance between industry innovation and protecting rights and citizens.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

Struggling to \u2018catch up\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n

Amid a piecemeal, noncommittal legislative climate<\/a>, media insist that policymakers are unable to keep pace with AI development, inevitably resulting in regulatory delays. NPR<\/b> (5\/15\/23<\/a>) exemplified this with the claim that Congress had \u201ca lot of catching up to do\u201d on AI and the later question (5\/17\/23<\/a>) \u201cCan politicians catch up with AI?\u201d Months earlier, the New York Times<\/b> (3\/3\/23<\/a>) reported that \u201clawmakers have long struggled to understand new innovations,\u201d with Washington consequently taking \u201ca hands-off stance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NYT:<\/p>\n

Congress has failed to regulate technology because \u201clawmakers have long struggled to understand new innovations,\u201d the New York Times<\/strong> (3\/3\/23<\/a>) reports\u2014and not because tech firms give millions of dollars<\/a> to politicians, especially Democrats.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Times <\/b>noted that the European Union had proposed a law that would curtail some potentially harmful AI applications, including those made by US companies, and that US lawmakers had expressed intentions to review the legislation. (The EU\u2019s AI Act, as it\u2019s known, may<\/a> become law by the end of 2023.) Yet the paper didn\u2019t feel compelled to ask why the EU\u2014whose<\/a> leadership<\/a> isn\u2019t exactly dominated by computer scientists\u2014could forge ahead with restrictions on the US AI industry, but the US couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

These outlets frame AI rulemaking as a matter of technical knowledge, when it would be more accurate, and constructive, to frame it as one of moral consideration. <\/i>One might argue that, in order to regulate a form of technology that affects the public\u2014say, via \u201cpredictive policing\u201d algorithms<\/a>, or automated social-services software<\/a>\u2014it\u2019s more important to grasp its societal impact than its operational minutia. (Congressional staffer Anna Lenhart told the Washington Post<\/b>\u20146\/17\/23<\/a>\u2014as much, but this notion seems to be far from mainstream.)<\/p>\n

This certainly isn\u2019t the prevailing view of the New York Times <\/b>(8\/24\/23<\/a>), which argued that legislators\u2019 lag continues a pattern of slow congressional responses to new technologies, repeating the refrain that policymakers \u201chave struggled\u201d to enact major technology laws. The Times <\/b>cited the 19th century advent of steam-powered trains as an example of a daunting legislative subject, emphasizing that Congress took more than 50 years to institute railroad price controls.<\/p>\n

Yet the process of setting pricing rules has little, if anything, to do with the mechanical specifics of a train. Could it be that delays on price controls were caused more by pro-corporate policy choices than by a lack of technological expertise? For the Times<\/b>, such a question, which might begin to expose some of the ugly underpinnings of US governance, didn\u2019t merit attention.<\/p>\n

The wrong incentives <\/b><\/h3>\n
\"WaPo<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/strong> (12\/28\/22<\/a>) did a whole story about Rep. Don Beyer (D\u2013Va.) going back to school to learn about AI\u2014with no mention of his investments in AI stocks.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The New York Times<\/b> need look no further than its own archives to find some more illuminating context for US lawmakers\u2019 approach to AI regulation. Last year, the paper (9\/13\/22<\/a>) reported that 97 members of Congress owned stock in companies that would be influenced by those members\u2019 regulatory committees. Indeed, many of those weighing in on AI regulation have a powerful incentive not<\/i> to rein the technology in.<\/p>\n

One of those 97 was Rep. Donald S. Beyer, Jr. (D\u2013Va.), who \u201cbought and sold [shares in Google<\/b> parent company] Alphabet<\/b> and Microsoft<\/b> while he was on the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight.\u201d Beyer, who serves<\/a> as vice chair of the House AI Caucus, has been featured in multiple articles (Washington Post<\/b>, 12\/28\/22<\/a>; ABC News<\/b>, 3\/17\/23<\/a>) as a model AI legislator. The New York Times<\/b> (3\/3\/23<\/a>) itself lauded Beyer\u2019s enrollment in evening classes on AI, sharing his alert that regulation would \u201ctake time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curiously, the coverage commending Beyer\u2019s regulatory initiative has omitted his record of investing in the two companies\u2014which happen to rank among the US\u2019s most prominent<\/a> purveyors of AI software\u2014while he was authorized to police them.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in its congressional stock-trading report, the New York Times<\/b> called Rep. Michael McCaul (R\u2013Texas) \u201cone of Congress\u2019s most active filers,\u201d noting his investments in a whopping 342 companies, including<\/a> Microsoft<\/b>, Alphabet <\/b>and Meta<\/b>, formerly known as Facebook<\/b>, which also has a tremendous financial stake<\/a> in AI. McCaul, like Beyer, boasts<\/a> a top-brass post on the House AI Caucus.<\/p>\n

McCaul\u2019s trades were dwarfed by those of fellow AI Caucus member Rep. Ro Khanna (D\u2013Calif.), who, according to the Times<\/b>, has owned stock in nearly 900 companies. Among them: leading<\/a> AI-chip manufacturer Nvidia (as of 2021<\/a>), Alphabet<\/b> and Microsoft<\/b>. (Khanna has nominally endorsed<\/a> proposals to curb congressional stock-trading, a stance contradicted by his vast portfolio.) Save for the Times <\/b>expos\u00e9, none of the above pieces addressed Khanna\u2019s, or McCaul\u2019s, ethical breaches; in fact, Khanna is a recurring media source on AI legislation (Semafor<\/b>, 4\/26\/23<\/a>; San Francisco Chronicle<\/b>, 7\/20\/23<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Congressmembers, dozens of whom have historically owned stock<\/a> in AI companies, surely must be capable of learning about AI\u2014and doing so swiftly\u2014if they\u2019ve been choosing to reap its monetary rewards for years. Why that knowledge can\u2019t be applied to regulating the technology seems to be yet another question media are uninterested in asking.<\/p>\n

Defense of toothless action<\/b><\/h3>\n
\"Yahoo:<\/p>\n

Yahoo<\/strong> (5\/17\/23<\/a>) assures us that legislators \u201cwon\u2019t make same mistake with AI\u201d that they did with social media.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In omitting this critical information, news sources are effectively giving Congress an undeserved redemption arc. Following years of legislative apathy to the surveillance<\/a>, monopolization<\/a>, labor<\/a> abuses<\/a> and countless other iniquities of Big Tech, media declare that legislators are trying to right their wrongs by targeting an ascendant AI industry (Yahoo! Finance<\/b>, 5\/17\/23<\/a>; GovTech<\/b>, 6\/21\/23<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Accordingly, media have embraced policymakers\u2019 efforts, no matter how feeble they may be. Throughout the year, politicians have hosted chummy hearings<\/a> and meetings<\/a>, as well as private dinners<\/a>, with the chiefs of major AI companies to discuss regulatory frameworks. Yet, rather than impugning the influence legislators have awarded these executives, outlets present these gatherings as testaments to lawmakers\u2019 dedication.<\/p>\n

CBS Austin <\/b>(8\/29\/23<\/a>) justified congressional reliance on executives, whom it called \u201cindustry experts,\u201d trumpeting that corporations like Microsoft<\/b>, OpenAI<\/b>, Anthropic<\/b>, Google<\/b> and Meta<\/b> were helping policymakers \u201cchart a path forward.\u201d The broadcaster went on to establish a pretext for business-friendly lawmaking:<\/p>\n

Congress is trying to find a delicate balance<\/a> of safeguarding the public while allowing the promising aspects of the technology to flourish and propel the economy and country into the future.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The New York Times<\/b> (8\/28\/23<\/a>), meanwhile, stated that Congress and the Biden administration have \u201cleaned on\u201d industry heads for \u201cguidance on regulation,\u201d a clever euphemism for lobbying. The Times<\/b> reported that Congress would hold a forthcoming \u201cclosed-door listening session\u201d with executives in order to \u201ceducate\u201d its members, evincing no skepticism over what that education might involve. (At the session, Congress will also host civil rights and labor groups, who are theoretically much more qualified than C-suiters to determine the moral content of AI policymaking, but received much less fanfare from the Times<\/b>.)<\/p>\n

The guests of the \u201clistening session,\u201d per the Times<\/b>, will include Twitter.com<\/b>\u2018s Elon Musk, Google<\/b>\u2019s Sundar Pichai, OpenAI<\/b>\u2019s Sam Altman and Microsoft<\/b>\u2019s Satya Nadella. Might the fact that each<\/a> of<\/a> them<\/a> has<\/a> fought tech-industry constraints have some bearing on the future? Reading the Times<\/b> story, which didn\u2019t deem this worth a mention, one wouldn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/p>\n

Julianne Tveten\u2019s work has appeared in<\/em> In These Times, The Nation, The New Republic, Pacifica Radio and elsewhere.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

8 Sep 2023 – Corporate Press: \u2018US Policymakers would like to place guardrails on artificial intelligence, but, given its novel and evolving nature, they\u2019ll need more time.\u2019 This narrative minimizes their responsibility\u2014 excusing, rather than interrogating, regulatory inertia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":240236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3078],"tags":[1733,2314,1855,70],"class_list":["post-244029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","tag-corporate-media","tag-mainstream-media-msm","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244029"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244034,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244029\/revisions\/244034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}