Key tech leaders have been worried about artificial intelligence lately. Bill Gates is scared. OpenAI’s Sam Altman just testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that Congress should reform liability laws and create a national or international body to license AI developers. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, former presidential hopeful Andrew Yang and Elon Musk have joined 30,000 others in calling for a six-month pause in AI experiments.
Nonetheless, the U.S. AI industry shouldn’t pause or even ease up. It should extend our lead in the global AI research race. Our government, on the other hand, should pump the brakes and take a pit stop.
AI could result in the most transformative technologies of our time, a giant engine of growth, and a powerful example of American ingenuity and global leadership. It is also fraught with challenges. For AI to reach its full potential and to appropriately address the technology’s challenges, we must learn by doing. That means letting the technology develop.
Pausing AI research and deployment for six months would squander the technological lead the United States holds and for little benefit. We would benefit more if Congress committed to pausing its legislative involvement for at least one year.
Biden should put AI regulation on hold so US can expand innovation lead
Likewise, a hiatus on new regulation across the Biden administration and federal agencies would help the United States expand its lead in this area. Such a commitment will require all levels of government to exhibit a high level of restraint and humility, but there is good reason to slow regulatory efforts.
The government doesn’t know enough about AI to regulate it. For example, in Tuesday’s hearing, senators kept comparing AI with social media. But automated vehicles, AI health diagnostic tools and tech support chatbots have little in common with each other, let alone with social media. If Congress doesn’t fully understand this technology, it has no shot at sensible regulation.
Samuel Altman, CEO of OpenAI, testifies before the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law on May 16, 2023. Win McNamee, Getty Images.
Furthermore, the rapid pace of AI innovation means policies set today could be out of date by the end of the month. Worse, misinformed or outdated legislation could block unforeseen and unforeseeable innovations by applying today’s understanding to tomorrow’s technology.
Imagine what would happen if government required licenses and pre-release testing for AI models. The currently successful companies would have a government-created moat to protect them from competition. In particular, open source and other decentralized approaches − where some very interesting experimentation is happening − would be left in the cold.
Some particularly important existing AI applications could suffer as a result. For example, last year, Google prevented 1.43 million policy-violating apps, and prevented over $2 billion in fraudulent and abusive transactions leveraging machine learning systems. Apple disabled or blocked more than 400 million fraudulent accounts last year.
Obviously, this isn’t being done by humans alone. Just last month, Google announced a new AI language model called Sec-PaLM, which will detect potentially malicious scripts, detect threats and respond instantly. The cybersecurity threats won’t pause. Why should our best efforts to preempt them?
In contrast, when anyone can develop and deploy AI technologies, there is more competition and more ideas are being tested. More experimentation means more failure but also more success. There are already thousands of AI applications in the world, and while many might look frivolous or useless, some have already saved lives.
Experimentation with AI can help fulfill technology’s potential
And we should welcome more experimentation. The current wave of AI is still new, and we don’t yet know all of its potential.
We should also be concerned about diversity of thought. No one person’s vision of the future should shape this technology. Simply because a few voices have risen above the fray does not necessarily mean that their point of view is correct. But preemptive regulation must reflect something. Without further development of the technology, it will be a direct reflection of the most prominent and loudest voices in the conversation.
Now, anyone can participate in the development of AI. This brings a wider range of perspectives to the table. We should continue to welcome those voices rather than stifle attempts to enter the ongoing development of the technology.
Certainly, there are ethical concerns about the various uses of AI. Politicians and regulators should drill down to actual applications: How will AI be used to make decisions that affect people’s lives? Are there new risks from specific applications of AI? Are those risks addressed under current regulatory framework?
It is only after asking and answering these questions that Congress might consider how it could fill identified gaps.
The rapid pace of AI development over the past year has certainly caught Congress by surprise. But that should not cause Congress to jump straight to legislation. Concern about an issue is not a justification for national policy, and many new ethical issues are resolved without new legislation.
Instead, we should all be experimenting and learning how to use these technologies. As we do that, we will develop norms and principles to guide AI use. We can do this without Congress. For at least a year.
USA Today