Members of the House AI Task Force on Wednesday reiterated their priorities for artificial intelligence legislation introduced in the lower chamber, with a focus on keeping humans at the center of AI technologies. AI and their applications while maintaining a light and strict regulatory approach.

Speaking in an interview with WTOP recorded in September and broadcast Wednesday, Reps. Don Beyer, D-Va., and Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., shed light on what the task force will focus on in its next report. As members of the House AI Task Force, Beyer and Obernolte both emphasized their desire to advance the 14 bills the group approved earlier this fall.

A Beyer spokesperson said Nextgov/FCW that the House AI Task Force will publish a report in late 2024 on these 14 bills and their contents.

“I am cautiously optimistic that our report will be the most in-depth discussion paper on AI ever produced by the legislature,” Beyer said. He added that moving the legislation forward will depend on continued bipartisan work.

“We’ve worked very hard, we have some bills that are not bipartisan, and the saddest thing, or the most realistic thing, is that they won’t pass unless they are bipartisan,” he said. -he declared. .

Among the many concerns these bills seek to prevent are the spread of disinformation, threats to national security and cybersecurity, database transparency training, and the targeting of deepfakes and other synthetic content.

Stay faithful to the advice given by private sector leaders, government coalitions And agenciesBeyer said lawmakers are prioritizing keeping a human in the loop when deploying an AI system in sensitive environments and applications.

“A lot of what we’re working on right now in Congress is making sure that humans are the final agents in the use of AI,” Beyer said.

Keeping regulations as light as possible is also a goal Beyer and Obernolte want to bring to future regulatory bills. Obernolte said the House AI Task Force recommends an approach that would ask industry regulators with deep industry knowledge to help determine how to police AI tools in their specific areas.

“We call this the hub-and-spoke approach; we believe in sectoral regulation,” Obernolte said. “What you use AI for is very important.”

He cited examples such as the Food and Drug Administration already processing more than a thousand applications to use AI in medical devices and said decisions about automated cars and air traffic control would fall to the jurisdiction of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Federal Aviation. Administration, respectively.

“The great leaders in AI are the ones who have come to Congress repeatedly over the last two years to say, ‘Please give us some guidelines.’ Give us what the benchmark should be,’” Beyer said, contrasting the House’s legislative plans with the European Union’s sweeping AI law, which imposes a majority of obligations on AI developers. high risk and outright bans certain systems. “They don’t want to be like Europe.”

Prioritizing the freedom to innovate and creativity in the field of AI is another factor that lawmakers will keep in mind as they continue to push legislation through both chambers. Obernolte said the goal is not to burden small and medium-sized businesses with too much regulation.

“One of the things that is underappreciated about federal regulation is that it almost always results in disempowering large businesses and disadvantaging small businesses and entrepreneurship because the more the regulatory landscape is complex, the more legal resources a company will have. we have to manage this,” he said. “We don’t regulate tools. We regulate the results.