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| <title> - ADVANCES IN AI: ARE WE READY FOR A TECH REVOLUTION?</title> | |
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| [House Hearing, 118 Congress] | |
| [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] | |
| ADVANCES IN AI: ARE WE READY | |
| FOR A TECH REVOLUTION? | |
| ======================================================================= | |
| HEARING | |
| before the | |
| SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBERSECURITY, INFORMATION | |
| TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT INNOVATION | |
| of the | |
| COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT | |
| AND ACCOUNTABILITY | |
| HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES | |
| ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS | |
| FIRST SESSION | |
| __________ | |
| MARCH 8, 2023 | |
| __________ | |
| Serial No. 118-7 | |
| __________ | |
| Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability | |
| Available on: govinfo.gov | |
| oversight.house.gov or | |
| docs.house.gov | |
| _________ | |
| U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE | |
| 51-473 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023 | |
| COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY | |
| JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman | |
| Jim Jordan, Ohio Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking | |
| Mike Turner, Ohio Minority Member | |
| Paul Gosar, Arizona Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of | |
| Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Columbia | |
| Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts | |
| Gary Palmer, Alabama Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia | |
| Clay Higgins, Louisiana Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois | |
| Pete Sessions, Texas Ro Khanna, California | |
| Andy Biggs, Arizona Kweisi Mfume, Maryland | |
| Nancy Mace, South Carolina Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York | |
| Jake LaTurner, Kansas Katie Porter, California | |
| Pat Fallon, Texas Cori Bush, Missouri | |
| Byron Donalds, Florida Shontel Brown, Ohio | |
| Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota Jimmy Gomez, California | |
| Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico | |
| William Timmons, South Carolina Robert Garcia, California | |
| Tim Burchett, Tennessee Maxwell Frost, Florida | |
| Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Becca Balint, Vermont | |
| Lisa McClain, Michigan Summer Lee, Pennsylvania | |
| Lauren Boebert, Colorado Greg Casar, Texas | |
| Russell Fry, South Carolina Jasmine Crockett, Texas | |
| Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Dan Goldman, New York | |
| Chuck Edwards, North Carolina Jared Moskowitz, Florida | |
| Nick Langworthy, New York | |
| Eric Burlison, Missouri | |
| Mark Marin, Staff Director | |
| Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel | |
| Raj Bharwani, Senior Professional Staff Member | |
| Lauren Lombardo, Senior Policy Analyst | |
| Peter Warren, Senior Advisor | |
| Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk | |
| Contact Number: 202-225-5074 | |
| Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director | |
| Contact Number: 202-225-5051 | |
| ------ | |
| Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government | |
| Innovation | |
| Nancy Mace, South Carolina, Chairwoman | |
| William Timmons, South Carolina Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia | |
| Tim Burchett, Tennessee Ranking Minority Member | |
| Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Ro Khanna, California | |
| Anna Paulina Luna, Florida Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts | |
| Chuck Edwards, North Carolina Kweisi Mfume, Maryland | |
| Nick Langworthy, New York Jimmy Gomez, California | |
| Eric Burlison, Missouri Jared Moskowitz, Florida | |
| C O N T E N T S | |
| ---------- | |
| Page | |
| Hearing held on March 8, 2023.................................... 1 | |
| Witnesses | |
| Dr. Eric Schmidt, Chair, Special Competitive Studies Project | |
| Oral Statement................................................... 6 | |
| Dr. Aleksander Mafdry, Director & Cadence Design Systems | |
| Professor of Computing, MIT Center for Deployable Machine | |
| Learning & Massachusetts | |
| Institute of Technology | |
| Oral Statement................................................... 7 | |
| Dr. Scott Crowder, Vice President & CTO, IBM Quantum/IBM Systems, | |
| Technical Strategy, and Transformation | |
| Oral Statement................................................... 9 | |
| Ms. Merve Hickok, Chair and Research Director, Center for AI and | |
| Digital Policy | |
| Oral Statement................................................... 11 | |
| Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are | |
| available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document | |
| Repository at: docs.house.gov. | |
| Index of Documents | |
| ---------- | |
| * Questions for the Record: to Dr. Crowder; submitted by Rep. | |
| Mace. | |
| * Questions for the Record: to Dr. Crowder; submitted by Rep. | |
| Connolly. | |
| * Questions for the Record: to Dr. Schmidt; submitted by Rep. | |
| Mace. | |
| * Questions for the Record: to Dr. Schmidt; submitted by Rep. | |
| Connolly. | |
| * Questions for the Record: to Ms. Hickok; submitted by Rep. | |
| Connolly. | |
| * Questions for the Record: to Dr. Mafdry; submitted by Rep. | |
| Mace. | |
| * Questions for the Record: to Dr. Mafdry; submitted by Rep. | |
| Connolly. | |
| ADVANCES IN AI: ARE WE READY | |
| FOR A TECH REVOLUTION? | |
| ---------- | |
| Wednesday, March 8, 2023 | |
| House of Representatives | |
| Committee on Oversight and Accountability | |
| Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government | |
| Innovation | |
| Washington, D.C. | |
| The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:19 p.m., in | |
| room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Nancy Mace | |
| [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. | |
| Present: Representatives Mace, Timmons, Burchett, Greene, | |
| Luna, Edwards, Langworthy, Burlison, Connolly, Lynch, Khanna, | |
| Mfume, and Gomez. | |
| Ms. Mace. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. The | |
| Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and | |
| Government Innovation will come to order. | |
| Welcome and good afternoon to everyone who is here on both | |
| sides of the aisle. Without objection, the Chair may declare a | |
| recess at any time. I recognize myself for the purpose of | |
| making an opening statement, if I may. | |
| Thank you all for being here today, the time and the effort | |
| and commitment to this congressional hearing on our artificial | |
| intelligence. As Chair of this committee, I recognize myself | |
| for five minutes to provide an opening statement on this very | |
| important topic which many of us here today are extremely | |
| passionate about. | |
| The field of artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving, | |
| and one of the most exciting developments in recent years has | |
| been the emergence of generative models. These models have | |
| shown the ability to produce human-like language and even | |
| generate images, videos, and music. While the potential | |
| applications of generative models are vast and impressive, | |
| there are also serious concerns about the ethical implications | |
| of their use. | |
| As we explore the potential of AI and generative models, it | |
| is essential that we consider the impact they may have on | |
| society. We must work together to ensure that AI is developed | |
| and used in a way that is ethical, transparent, and beneficial | |
| to all of society. This will require collaboration between | |
| government, industry, and academia to ensure that the AI we | |
| develop is reliable, trustworthy, and aligned with public | |
| policy goals. | |
| Moreover, we must consider the operational legal | |
| responsibilities of companies that use these models. AI can | |
| help us make better decisions, but we must also ensure that | |
| those decisions are ethical, unbiased, and transparent. To | |
| achieve this, we need to establish guidelines for AI | |
| development and use. We need to establish a clear legal | |
| framework to hold companies accountable for the consequences of | |
| their AI systems. | |
| The Federal Government has an important role to play in the | |
| development and deployment of AI. As the largest employer in | |
| the United States, the government can use AI to improve | |
| operations and provide better services to the public. AI can | |
| help reduce costs, improve efficiency, and enhance the accuracy | |
| of decision-making, for example. AI can be used to analyze vast | |
| amounts of data to identify patterns and make predictions which | |
| can help government agencies make more informed decisions. | |
| As we move forward, we must also ensure that AI is used for | |
| the benefit of society as a whole. While AI has the potential | |
| to improve efficiency, increase productivity, and enhance the | |
| quality of life, it can also be used to automate jobs, invade | |
| privacy, and perpetuate inequality. We must also work together | |
| to ensure that AI is used in a way that benefits everyone, not | |
| just a privileged few. | |
| In conclusion, the emergence of generative models | |
| represents a significant step forward in the development of | |
| artificial intelligence. However, with the progress comes | |
| responsibility. We must ensure that AI is developed and used in | |
| a way that is ethical, transparent, and beneficial to society, | |
| and the Federal Government has an important role in this | |
| effort. | |
| I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides | |
| of the aisle on this committee to ensure that the U.S. remains | |
| a leader in the development of AI technologies. Thank you for | |
| your time and attention. | |
| Now before I yield back, I'd like to note that everything I | |
| just said in my opening statement was, you guessed it, written | |
| by ChatGPT in AI. | |
| The advances that have been made just in the last few weeks | |
| and months have been radical, they've been amazing, and show | |
| the technology is rapidly evolving. Every single word up until | |
| this sentence was generated entirely by ChatGPT. And perhaps | |
| for the first time in a committee hearing--I know Jake | |
| Auchincloss said a statement on the floor a couple weeks ago, | |
| but I believe this is the first opening statement of a hearing | |
| generated by ChatGPT or other AI models. | |
| I now yield to the distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. | |
| Connolly, for your opening statement. | |
| Mr. Connolly. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And let me first | |
| thank you for reaching out on a bipartisan basis to talk about | |
| this Subcommittee and our agenda. I really appreciate that, and | |
| I wish more committees and subcommittees operated that way. And | |
| I think we had fruitful conversation. We actually had a meeting | |
| with certain cyber officials of the executive branch while we | |
| were in Munich at the Security Conference. And, again, I just | |
| appreciate your approach, and hope we can collaborate and make | |
| music together over the next two years. | |
| The Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government | |
| Innovation Subcommittee has dedicated its first hearing to | |
| examining advances in artificial intelligence and its | |
| revolutionary impact on society. This decision reflects our | |
| membership's interest in commitment of exploring, | |
| understanding, and implementing emergent technologies. | |
| Last Congress, Chairwoman Nancy Mace, Representative Ro | |
| Khanna, and I introduced the Quantum Computing and | |
| Cybersecurity Preparedness Act, which encourages Federal | |
| agencies to adopt post-quantum cryptography. I'm also pleased | |
| the bill was signed into law just a few months ago. I look | |
| forward to future bipartisan collaboration as we define the | |
| problem sets associated with AI design solutions and that | |
| promote innovation while simultaneously mitigating the dangers | |
| and risks inherent in AI technology. | |
| The Federal Government has a historic, necessary, and | |
| appropriate role guiding and investing research development for | |
| new and emerging technologies. The Defense Advanced Research | |
| Projects Agency, DARPA, the well-known research and development | |
| agency of the United States Department of Defense, is | |
| responsible for the development of myriad emerging | |
| technologies. | |
| One of the most famous successes includes the ARPANET, | |
| which eventually evolved into the internet which we know today. | |
| Other innovations include microelectronics, global positioning | |
| systems, infrared--inferred night imaging, unmanned vehicles, | |
| and what eventually became cloud technology. | |
| AI will require similar Federal investment and engagement. | |
| As stated in the January 2023 final report from the National | |
| Artificial Intelligence Research Task Force, the recent CHIPS | |
| and Science Act reinforces the importance of democratizing | |
| access to a national AI research cyber infrastructure. U.S. | |
| talent and frontier science and engineering, including AI, in | |
| the report calls for 2.6 billion over the next six years for | |
| the purpose of funding national AI research infrastructure. | |
| While government certainly plays a role in R&D, a very | |
| important role, it also has a regulatory role. Congress has the | |
| responsibility to posture careful and thoughtful discussions to | |
| balance the benefits of innovation with the potential risks of | |
| emerging technology. | |
| A recent National Bureau of Economic Research report found | |
| that AI could save the United States healthcare industry more | |
| than $360 billion a year and be used as a powerful tool to | |
| detect health risks. A GAO report predicts AI could help | |
| identify and patch vulnerabilities and defend against cyber | |
| attacks, automate arduous tasks, and expand jobs within the | |
| industry. | |
| As with all technologies, in the wrong hands, AI could be | |
| used to hack financial data, steal national intelligence, and | |
| create deep fakes, blurring people's abilities to certify | |
| reality, and sow further distress within our democracy. AI can | |
| cause unintentional harms. GAO found that certain groups, such | |
| as workers with no college education, tended to hold jobs | |
| susceptible to automation and eventually unemployment. | |
| Another concern relates to machine learning and data. ML, | |
| machine learning, uses data samples to learn and recognize | |
| patterns, such as scanning hundreds or thousands of pictures of | |
| lungs to better understand pulmonary fibrosis and revolutionize | |
| medical care. But what happens if those lung samples only come | |
| from a homogeneous portion of the population? And that medical | |
| breakthrough is inaccurately applied. When it comes to data, | |
| equity is accuracy and must ensure datasets include as much and | |
| as comprehensive a universe of data as possible. | |
| It is paramount that during this hearing we begin to create | |
| a flexible and robust framework, particularly for government's | |
| use of AI to protect democratic values and preemptively address | |
| social, economic, and moral dilemmas AI might raise. | |
| During the last Congress, this committee voted to pass the | |
| AI Training Act and the AI in Counterterrorism Oversight | |
| Enhancement Act, with bipartisan support. The committee is not | |
| entirely new to the AI space, and we look forward to continuing | |
| efforts to support transformative research. We also look | |
| forward to building on the Biden Administration's efforts such | |
| as the National Artificial Intelligence Resource Task Force. | |
| Just over a month ago, that task force released its report, | |
| providing a roadmap to stand up a national research | |
| infrastructure that would broaden access to the resources | |
| essential to AI. | |
| AI is already integrated within the world around us, and | |
| its growing use throughout society will continue to drive | |
| advancements. America must implement an aggressive, research- | |
| forward Federal AI policy to spur competition with other | |
| countries that have already established nationwide strategies, | |
| and additional supporting policy strategies might also include | |
| promoting open data, policies, or outcome-based strategies when | |
| assessing algorithms. | |
| Finally, and more importantly, our country needs the work | |
| force to properly develop, test, understand, and deploy AI. | |
| This work force of the future will include technologists who | |
| will help govern AI responsibly. | |
| I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. I look | |
| forward to collaborating with you, Madam Chairwoman, on any | |
| subsequent legislation we might want to develop. | |
| I yield back. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you, Congressman Connolly. And I, too, | |
| agree, I hope and I believe we will make music together, | |
| continue to do that. Cybersecurity has been one of the few | |
| places in Congress where we have been able to be bipartisan and | |
| not crazy. And so, I appreciate the ability to work with folks | |
| on both sides of the aisle. | |
| I'm pleased to introduce our four witnesses today for this | |
| Subcommittee's inaugural hearing of the 118th Congress. Our | |
| first witness is Dr. Eric Schmidt, Chair of the Special | |
| Competitive Studies Project. Dr. Schmidt is a former Google | |
| executive, where he held multiple senior-level positions, | |
| working alongside founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. | |
| Google literally changed the world, and it's a huge honor | |
| to have one of the godfathers of modern day technology here | |
| with us today talking about the advent of AI and what comes | |
| next, because I believe this will be one of the greatest | |
| technological revolutions of our lifetime and around the world. | |
| Dr. Schmidt is an accomplished technologist, entrepreneur, | |
| and philanthropist. Dr. Schmidt founded SCSP in 2021. This is a | |
| bipartisan, nonprofit initiative that works on issues relating | |
| to AI and other emerging technologies. Dr. Schmidt also co- | |
| authored a book in 2021 with Dr. Henry Kissinger and MIT dean, | |
| Dr. Daniel Huttenlocher, titled, ``The Age of AI: And Our Human | |
| Future.'' The book attempts to explain artificial intelligence | |
| while raising thought-provoking questions about the role of AI | |
| in topics such as security and world order. And there is a Wall | |
| Street Journal article that was an excerpt from the book that | |
| folks should pick up and read, ``ChatGPT Heralds an | |
| Intellectual Revolution.'' I'm going to encourage folks in this | |
| space to read it. | |
| Our second witness is Dr. Aleksander Mafdry, director of | |
| the MIT Center for Deployable Machine Learning. Dr. Mafdry is | |
| also a member of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial | |
| Intelligence Laboratory, Cadence Design Systems professor of | |
| computing, and co-lead of the MIT AI Policy Forum. Dr. Mafdry's | |
| research interests span algorithms, continuous optimization, | |
| the science of deep learning, and developing reliable, | |
| trustworthy, and secure machine learning systems. | |
| We look forward to hearing from you about the policy | |
| challenges and moral and ethical questions surrounding AI. | |
| Our third witness is Dr. Scott Crowder, vice president of | |
| Quantum Computing and IBM, and chief technology officer, IBM | |
| Systems, Technical Strategy and Transformation. Dr. Crowder's | |
| responsibilities include leading the commercialization effort | |
| for quantum computers and accelerating innovation within | |
| development through special projects. | |
| The Subcommittee is very interested in learning more about | |
| quantum AI and how quantum computing may some day change the | |
| way AI models can store, process, and even report data. | |
| Our fourth witness is Ms. Merve Hickok, Chair and research | |
| director for the Center for AI and Digital Policy. | |
| We welcome everyone who is here today, and we are so | |
| pleased to have all of you here this afternoon. | |
| Pursuant to committee rule 9(g), the witnesses, if you will | |
| please, stand up and raise your right hands. | |
| Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are | |
| about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but | |
| the truth, so help you God? | |
| Let the record show that the witnesses all answered in the | |
| affirmative. | |
| Thank you, and you may be seated. | |
| We appreciate all of you being here today and look forward | |
| to your testimony. I want to remind the witnesses that we have | |
| read your written statements, and they will appear in full in | |
| the hearing record. Please limit your oral arguments to five | |
| minutes, initially. As a reminder, please press the button on | |
| the microphone in front of you so we can all hear you when you | |
| are speaking. | |
| When you speak--begin to speak, the light in front of you | |
| will turn green. And after four minutes, the light will turn | |
| yellow. And then the light--red light comes on after your five | |
| minutes has expired. And we would ask that you please try to | |
| wrap up your comments at that time so that all the Members who | |
| are here today as part of this Subcommittee will get a chance | |
| to speak and ask you all questions. | |
| I would like to first recognize our first witness, Dr. | |
| Schmidt, to please begin your testimony. | |
| STATEMENT OF DR. ERIC SCHMIDT, CHAIR | |
| SPECIAL COMPETITIVE STUDIES PROJECT | |
| Mr. Schmidt. Chairwoman and Ranking Member, thank you so | |
| much, all of you, for spending some time on this incredibly | |
| important issue. | |
| I've been doing this for 50 years, and I have never seen | |
| something happen as fast as this round. It took five days for | |
| ChatGPT to get to a million users, and now we have it being | |
| used here in Congress. And, if you look throughout the country, | |
| throughout America, throughout the world I live in, machine | |
| learning in the broad form has taken it by storm. I'm used to | |
| hype cycles, but this one is real in the sense that enormous | |
| amounts of money are being raised to implement and build these | |
| systems. | |
| The sense to me is that this moment is a clear demarcation: | |
| A before and an after. And in our book, ``Age of AI,'' which | |
| you kindly mentioned, we actually talk about this is actually | |
| more than just an industrial strategy, it is actually a new | |
| epic in human experience. The last epic, of course, was the age | |
| of reason 400 years ago which came from the century of the | |
| printing press and the Reformation and things like that. | |
| The ability to have nonhuman intelligences that we work | |
| with and occasionally have to deal with is a major change in | |
| human history and not one that we will go back to. And you can | |
| imagine, if you speculate 10, 20, 30 years from now, at the | |
| rate at which this innovation is going, what it would be like | |
| to having these nonhuman intelligences in the midst, right? A | |
| topic for another day. | |
| The two most interesting things that have emerged in the | |
| last year have been large language models. Large language | |
| models can be understood as a system that was originally built | |
| to predict the next word, the next sentence, the next | |
| paragraph. But if you make them big enough--and when I say big, | |
| I mean huge--to the cost of a hundred million dollars, 200 | |
| million to build them, they appear to have emergent properties. | |
| They have what is technically known as capability overhang. In | |
| other words, we don't know exactly what they know. Although we | |
| do know they know an awful lot of things that are wrong, but we | |
| also know that they have a lot of insights. | |
| This has spurred enormous industry and a set of competitors | |
| that will be emerging in the next month or two. It's literally | |
| that fast. So, boom, boom, boom. | |
| The other one is the term ``generative AI,'' which for me | |
| is largely focused on the ability to generate new language, new | |
| pictures, new videos, and so forth. It's reasonable to expect | |
| that, in the next few years, a great deal of the content that | |
| we consume will be generated for us. | |
| Now, these are very, very, very powerful technologies. And | |
| the impact on society is going to be profound, and I don't | |
| think any of us understand how broad and how deep it will go. | |
| When I look at some of the issues that you all should face, | |
| I think the most obvious one is, what do you do about how | |
| people interact with the platforms? And I'll offer three | |
| principles. | |
| One is the platforms need to know where the content came | |
| from and they need to be able to tell you--this is to avoid | |
| misinformation, Russian actors, that sort of thing. You need to | |
| know who the users are. Even if you don't tell the end user who | |
| they are, there needs to be some notion of who they are and | |
| where they came from. True anonymity hidden behind a paywall | |
| would allow nation-state attacks. And the third is that these | |
| systems have to publish how their algorithms work, and then | |
| they have to be held to how their algorithms work. Those simple | |
| principles, I think, will help us manage the extreme cases | |
| here. | |
| We all, everyone in this room, wants the U.S. to win in | |
| this. And, again, Ranking Member, you mentioned--Connolly, you | |
| mentioned this issue around the national resource. My colleague | |
| to the left can speak about what it's like to be in a | |
| university where you don't have access to these models. We need | |
| that, and we need the computing capability as it transforms, | |
| not just language, but also every aspect of science and health | |
| and biology and material science. | |
| We want democratic partners, that is other countries. This | |
| is something where the West can do this together, and we can | |
| beat China, who is my primary focus. And, obviously, we need | |
| more AI and software talent in the government. And we wrote a | |
| long report for you all called the NSCAI that goes into that in | |
| great detail. | |
| What I want you to do is imagine the alternative. China | |
| announced a couple of years ago that they are going to be the | |
| dominant force in AI in 2030. Can you imagine the technology | |
| that imbues how we think, how we teach, how we entertain, and | |
| how we interact with each other imbued with Chinese values, not | |
| American values, not the values and rules that we have in our | |
| democracy? It's chilling. | |
| The military consequences are also profound, as are the | |
| biological, which we can talk about if you're interested. But | |
| the most important thing to understand is that we need to win | |
| because we want America to win, and this is our best, great | |
| opportunity to create trillions of dollars of wealth for | |
| American firms and American partners. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you, Dr. Schmidt. | |
| I would now like to recognize our second witness, Dr. | |
| Mafdry, for his opening statement. | |
| STATEMENT OF DR. ALEKSANDER MAfDRY, DIRECTOR, MIT CENTER FOR | |
| DEPLOYABLE MACHINE LEARNING, AND CADENCE DESIGN SYSTEMS | |
| PROFESSOR OF COMPUTING, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | |
| Mr. Mafdry. Chairwoman Mace, Ranking Member Connolly, | |
| Members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to testify. | |
| Today, I want to make three points: First, AI is no longer | |
| a matter of science fiction, nor is confined to research labs. | |
| The genie is out of the bottle. AI is being deployed, broadly | |
| adopted, as we speak. | |
| The key factor that made recent AI tools so popular is the | |
| accessibility. Tools like ChatGPT can be directed using simple | |
| language commands. We can ask it to draft us a memo or a speech | |
| or summarize a movie in much the same way we would ask any | |
| human. No AI expertise required. | |
| As the barrier to adopting AI gets lower and lower, AI will | |
| spread across our economy and our society. It will assist us in | |
| mental and creative tasks, such as writing, visual design, and | |
| coding. It will bolster and expand our capabilities. It can | |
| even help us integrate our accumulative knowledge; for example, | |
| in healthcare, in science, and engineering. | |
| But along with these opportunities, AI also brings risks. | |
| OK. Its lack of reliability; its propensity for promoting bias | |
| and enhancing social inequities; its undermining of | |
| accountability; its facilitation of deep fakes and manipulated | |
| media; its ability to fuel personalized, online phishing and | |
| harassment at scale. | |
| It's critical we proactively identify these emerging risks | |
| and develop clear and actionable ways to mitigate them. While | |
| doing that, we need to recognize, though, all the positives of | |
| AI and balance them against the negatives. In the end, the | |
| impact of AI is not a foregone conclusion as much as rapid | |
| progress of AI might suggest otherwise. | |
| This brings me to my second point. As we engage with AI | |
| more directly, we expose ourselves to interactions that go | |
| against our intuition. Because AI exploits our cognitive | |
| biases, we are often too likely to accept its results as | |
| gospel. Indeed, as we are able to communicate with AI so | |
| easily, so seamlessly, it's natural for us to think of them as | |
| human, but this is a mistake. These tools aren't human. They're | |
| a simple computation executed at impressive scale. | |
| By creating--by treating them as human, we fool ourselves | |
| into thinking that we understand how AI tools behave. We fool | |
| ourselves into thinking that we can straightforwardly adapt | |
| policies designed for humans to work in AI-driven contexts. | |
| Indeed, our intuition often fails us. Take ChatGPT. Given a | |
| question, it can write a really convincing answer, even if | |
| everything it is writing is factually incorrect. It can trick | |
| us into thinking the answer is critical by using prose that | |
| sounds like human experts. Therefore, an unmitigated reliance | |
| on such tools in our day-to-day lives, or even worse in our | |
| education, can have disastrous consequences. It can erode our | |
| analytical and reasoning capabilities. | |
| The final point I want to make is that we also need to pay | |
| attention to how AI is deployed. That is, if we focus solely on | |
| what I have discussed so far, we'll have a major blindspot. A | |
| key feature of measuring AI systems is that they can be used as | |
| foundation on top of which other systems are being built, | |
| forming what I would call AI supply chain. | |
| The upstream of this chain are organizations that create | |
| the foundation AI tools, like ChatGPT. And here, very few | |
| players will be able to compete, given the highly specialized | |
| skills and enormous capital investments the building of such | |
| systems requires. In contrast, we should expect an almost | |
| Cambrian explosion of startups and new use cases downstream of | |
| the supply chain, all leveraging the capabilities of upstream | |
| AI systems. | |
| This leads to a couple of policy-relevant observations. | |
| First, the limited number of large upstream systems may | |
| introduce new challenges, such as hidden systemic fragilities | |
| or structural biases. Imagine, for instance, if one of these | |
| upstream models goes suddenly offline. What happens downstream? | |
| Second, AI system won't be developed by a single entity. | |
| They will be products of multiple AI systems grouped together | |
| each from a different place. These composite systems will | |
| become even harder to predict, harder to audit, harder to | |
| regulate. For instance, who will be responsible and legally | |
| liable when something goes wrong? | |
| Third, this AI supply chain can redistribute power, control | |
| over where, when, and how AI is used. This factor will be | |
| paramount from a societal standpoint, from a geopolitical | |
| standpoint, from a national security standpoint. | |
| To conclude, let me say, we are at an inflection point in | |
| terms of what future AI will bring. Seizing this opportunity | |
| means discussing the role of AI, what exactly we want it to do | |
| for us, and how to ensure it benefits at all. This will be a | |
| difficult conversation, but we do need to have it and have it | |
| now. | |
| Thank you for the opportunity to speak with the | |
| Subcommittee. I look forward to the questions. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you. | |
| And I would like to recognize our third witness, Dr. | |
| Crowder, for your opening statement. | |
| STATEMENT OF DR. SCOTT CROWDER, VICE PRESIDENT, IBM QUANTUM, | |
| AND CTO, IBM SYSTEMS, TECHNICAL STRATEGY AND TRANSFORMATION, | |
| IBM | |
| Mr. Crowder. Chairwoman Mace, Ranking Member Connolly, and | |
| distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for this | |
| opportunity to testify before you today. | |
| Today, I represent IBM Quantum where we have two goals: to | |
| bring usable quantum computing to industry and research and to | |
| make our digital infrastructure quantum safe. We have a network | |
| of over 200 industry and research partners exploring the use of | |
| quantum computing for business and science, and have developed | |
| technology to make the transition to quantum safe cryptography | |
| easier. | |
| There is a common perception that classical computers can | |
| solve any problem if they're just big enough. That is not the | |
| case. There is a whole class of problems that classical | |
| computers are not good at and never really will be. | |
| When I talk to leading U.S. companies about their unsolved | |
| problems that if solved could bring them huge economic | |
| benefit--these types of problems turn up everywhere. Some of | |
| these longstanding problems could be solved with a combination | |
| of quantum computing and artificial intelligence. | |
| Quantum computing is a rapidly advancing and radically | |
| different computing paradigm which could launch a new age of | |
| human discovery. Just seven years ago, the notion of a quantum | |
| developer didn't exist. IBM was the first to put a real quantum | |
| computer on the cloud; at the time it was just five qubits. | |
| Today, IBM has systems over 400 qubits. And if we continue on | |
| this technology roadmap, by the middle of this decade, we'll | |
| have 4,000 qubit systems and will demonstrate the first | |
| practical use of quantum computing. | |
| IBM alone has deployed over 60 systems, and our 500,000 | |
| registered users have published over 2,000 research papers. One | |
| key thread in this research is the application of quantum | |
| computation within artificial intelligence. Many of our | |
| partners have published research results using quantum machine | |
| learning techniques. Examples include financial institutions | |
| exploring quantum algorithms for improved fraud detection; | |
| Boeing exploring optimization of composite materials for better | |
| airplane wings; and CERN exploring applications in high-energy | |
| physics. | |
| One primary reason quantum computing has benefit for | |
| artificial intelligence is because it uses a different method | |
| to find patterns in data. For example, in fraud detection, a | |
| quantum algorithm may be better at detecting true fraud and | |
| reducing false positives. A data scientist may choose to use | |
| either a quantum fraud model or a classical AI fraud model or a | |
| combination for the best results. Put simply, quantum will be | |
| another computational tool to use to improve AI results. | |
| Generally, we see the future of computing as a combination | |
| of classical, specialized AI, and quantum computing resources. | |
| It will not be based solely on classical bits, but rather built | |
| upon bits and neurons and quantum bits, or qubits. This will | |
| enable the next generation of intelligent, mission-critical | |
| systems and accelerate the rate of science-driven discovery. | |
| Researchers, companies, and governments that leverage this | |
| technology will have a distinct competitive advantage. | |
| That leads to a critical point: When one examines the | |
| financial commitment other countries are making in quantum | |
| computing, our belief is the U.S. Government investment in | |
| driving this critical technology is insufficient to stay | |
| competitive. At its inception in 2018, the $1.7 billion | |
| National Quantum Initiative stood as a leading public | |
| investment. Today, the planned global public investment in | |
| quantum technology is estimated to exceed $30 billion, with | |
| China at $15 billion. It is critical that we not only | |
| reauthorize the NQI, but also increase its investment in the | |
| critical area of research of use of quantum computers for | |
| mission-critical applications. | |
| The same importance for ethical and trustworthy AI applies | |
| whether classical compute or quantum compute underpins the | |
| solution. We know that trustworthiness is key to AI adoption, | |
| and the first step in promoting trust is effective risk | |
| management policies and practices. Companies must have strong | |
| internal governance processes, including, among other things, | |
| designating a lead AI ethics official responsible for its | |
| trustworthy AI strategy, and standing up an AI ethics board as | |
| a centralized clearinghouse for resources to help guide that | |
| strategy. IBM has implemented both, and we continue to advocate | |
| others in the industry to do likewise. | |
| Additionally, it's important to establish best practices | |
| for AI bias mitigation, similar to BSA's framework published in | |
| 2021. | |
| It's difficult to pinpoint the precise benefits and | |
| possible challenges presented by any new emerging technology. | |
| Quantum computing is no different. However, those countries | |
| that make investments in this transformative technology today | |
| will reap benefits in the years to come. Those countries that | |
| do not will be at a competitive disadvantage in the future. At | |
| the same time, countries will also need to invest time and | |
| energy in developing an appropriate regulatory environment that | |
| supports the adoption of trustworthy AI regardless of the | |
| underlying compute technology. | |
| Thank you again for inviting me to testify, and I look | |
| forward to today's discussion. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you. | |
| And I would like to recognize our fourth witness, Ms. | |
| Hickok, for your opening statement. | |
| STATEMENT OF MS. MERVE HICKOK, CHAIR AND RESEARCH DIRECTOR, | |
| CENTER FOR AI AND DIGITAL POLICY | |
| Ms. Hickok. Thank you so much. | |
| Good afternoon, Chairwoman Mace and distinguished Members | |
| of the committee. I'm Merve Hickok, Chair and research director | |
| for Center for AI and Digital Policy. It's an honor to be here | |
| today, and thank you for the opportunity to testify. | |
| CAIDP is a global research organization based in D.C. We | |
| educate and train future AI policy leaders, collaborate with AI | |
| policy experts around the world. We also publish AI and | |
| Democratic Values index, analyzing AI policies and practices | |
| across 75 countries. | |
| I also train and build capacity in organizations on | |
| responsible AI development and governance. And prior to CAIDP, | |
| I was in the corporate world as a senior leader at Bank of | |
| America Merrill Lynch, responsible for recruitment technologies | |
| internationally. | |
| I provide this background because we believe in the promise | |
| of AI. However, we also know that AI systems, if not developed | |
| and governed with safeguards, have negative impacts on | |
| individuals and society. We believe that AI should first and | |
| foremost serve members of the society, their rights, their | |
| freedoms; our social, moral, and ethical values. | |
| The title of the hearing today asks if you are ready for a | |
| tech revolution. My brief answer is no. We don't have the | |
| guardrails in place, the laws that we need, the public | |
| education, or the expertise in the government to manage the | |
| consequences of the rapid technological changes. | |
| Internationally, we are losing AI post leadership. | |
| Domestically, Americans say they are more concerned about-- | |
| concerned than excited by AI making important life decisions | |
| about them, knowing their behavior. AI systems now produce | |
| results we cannot assess or replicate. Opaque systems put | |
| governments, companies, and individuals at risk. AI expands our | |
| research and innovation capabilities; however, it also | |
| replicates existing biases in the datasets and biases in the | |
| choices of the developers, resulting in disadvantaging people | |
| with disabilities in hiring, for example; inaccurate health | |
| predictions for patients of color; offering women lower credit, | |
| lower home valuations; innocent people being arrested due to | |
| biased facial recognition. | |
| We are now debating generative systems which produce | |
| synthetic text, image, video, and audio. The systems will | |
| certainly add to our creativity, there is no doubt about it, | |
| but they're already impacting the original creators. They will | |
| also be used by malicious actors to fabricate events, people, | |
| speeches, and news for disinformation, cyber fraud, | |
| blackmailing, and propaganda purposes. | |
| I give this testimony on International Women's Day, when | |
| unregulated opaque AI systems deepen discrimination and online | |
| harassment against women. | |
| Both governments and private companies know that public | |
| trust is a must-have for further innovation, investment, | |
| adoption, and expansion. Companies, large and small, are | |
| calling for regulatory guidance. | |
| Administrations of both parties have called for trust for | |
| the AI. President Trump's Executive Order 13960 explained that | |
| ongoing adoption and acceptance of AI will depend significantly | |
| on public trust, and AI should be worthy of people's trust, and | |
| that this order signals to the world U.S. commitment to develop | |
| and use AI underpins by democratic values. The order | |
| characterized trustworthy AI as being lawful, respective of | |
| civil rights, accurate, reliable, safe, understandable, | |
| responsible, transparent, accountable, and regularly monitored. | |
| Office of Science and Technology has recently published | |
| AI--Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, a critical policy | |
| framework underscoring similar qualities for AI, emphasizing | |
| democratic values and civil rights. | |
| President Biden has called for bipartisan legislation to | |
| keep companies accountable, and reiterated the same principles: | |
| transparency, accountability, and safeguarding our values. | |
| We very much support this committee and its bipartisan | |
| nature, but there are real challenges ahead, and I will | |
| conclude with a few recommendations toward those. | |
| We really need the Congress to hold more hearings like | |
| this, explore the challenges, the risks and benefits, and hear | |
| from the public and those impacted. We need the Office of | |
| Management and Budget to move forward with the long-delayed | |
| rulemaking for the use of AI in Federal agencies as part of the | |
| executive order. We need to build multidisciplinary capacity in | |
| Federal Government to ensure the work force understands the | |
| benefits and risks of AI. We need the wider work force to | |
| understand benefits and risks of AI as well. We need R&D | |
| capabilities expanded beyond a handful of companies, campuses, | |
| and labs, and demand trustworthy AI with our research agenda. I | |
| urge you to act now to enact the legislation reflecting the | |
| bipartisan nature. | |
| Absent a legislative agenda or implementation of AI policy, | |
| American people, American companies, and allies are lost about | |
| U.S. AI policy objectives. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Ms. Mace. And thank you. | |
| And I think one of the things that sticks out to me today | |
| is, actually, this is the first AI hearing this Congress in the | |
| U.S. House of Representatives. But also, this same day, the | |
| U.S. Senate had their first hearing on AI on this subject | |
| matter; they beat us by four hours this morning at 10 a.m. | |
| But I would now like to recognize myself for five minutes | |
| for a few questions of our panelists. | |
| Thank you, Dr. Schmidt, for painting what I would describe | |
| as a very vivid picture of what is happening in this space, | |
| because I agree with you, it's been rapid and, in your words, | |
| epic. And I'm not sure that the world is ready for what is to | |
| come in the next few months, years, et cetera. And so, it | |
| reminds me of Einstein. He said: ``I never think of the future. | |
| It comes soon enough.'' And it is here. And it is moving faster | |
| than the speed of light. | |
| So, my first question today is for Dr. Schmidt. How can we | |
| ensure that AI technology is developed in a way that is safe, | |
| transparent, and beneficial for society without stifling | |
| innovation? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. I'm always worried about AI conversations, | |
| because everyone believes the AI that we are building is what | |
| they see in the Terminator movies. And we are precisely not | |
| working on those things. So we are clear, we are not doing---- | |
| Ms. Mace. Not yet. | |
| Mr. Schmidt. We are not doing it yet, and we are not likely | |
| to. But what we are doing is working on systems that will | |
| affect the way people perceive their world. And I think the | |
| best thing for America to do is to follow American values, | |
| which include robust competition with government funding of | |
| basic research, and using the innovators, including the folks | |
| to my left, to actually deliver on this. | |
| I think that one of the things that is not appreciated in | |
| the last 30 or 40 years of tech companies is--speaking as a | |
| person who is associated with a number of them--is how good | |
| they are as American exports of our values. So, I come back to | |
| a much simpler formulation that American ingenuity, American | |
| scientists, the American government, and American corporations | |
| invent this future and will get something pretty close to what | |
| we want. And then you guys can work on the edges where you have | |
| misuse. | |
| The alternative is, think about if it comes from somewhere | |
| else which doesn't have our values. And I really believe that. | |
| Everything that you can do to finish, to support that | |
| innovation cycle, the universities, the graduate students, | |
| getting foreigners who are high-skilled in to help us, building | |
| those corporations, creating shareholder wealth, hiring lots of | |
| people--it's the American formula, and it will work here too. | |
| Ms. Mace. And then, on that note, in terms of the | |
| personnel, the resources, training folks in the technology so | |
| that it can advance, having that innovation. And lot of it is | |
| on the software side, but how does hardware figure into that? | |
| CHIPS, for example. | |
| Mr. Schmidt. So, in our AI commission that you all | |
| commissioned a while ago, we spent a lot of time on this. We | |
| felt it was very important for America to retain its | |
| leadership, which of course we didn't have, we gave it to | |
| Taiwan. The best result was to basically get the Taiwanese | |
| firms, primarily TSMC, and Korean firms, primarily Samsung, to | |
| locate plants in the United States, which has occurred. | |
| The Trump and Biden administrations have done a good job of | |
| restricting some of the sales and access to these tools to the | |
| Chinese. But, fundamentally, this is a race, it's a | |
| competition, and we're not that far ahead. So, we have to keep | |
| innovating, which is why your support for the CHIPS Act was so | |
| helpful. And so, on behalf of the whole industry I'll thank all | |
| of you for doing that. That's a good example of the government | |
| getting ahead of a real problem. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you. | |
| And, Dr. Mafdry, my next question for you, do we need to be | |
| worried about too much advancement too fast in AI? Are we | |
| capable of developing AI that could pose a danger to humanity's | |
| existence all over the world, some of the things that people | |
| talk about out of fear in this conversation because of a lack | |
| of knowledge, or is that just science fiction? | |
| Mr. Mafdry. Well, it really depends on what do we view as | |
| this kind of catastrophic risk. So, a Terminator-style | |
| scenario, I'm not too worried about this, as Dr. Schmidt just | |
| said. What I am worried is about something more mundane but | |
| essentially very, very corrosive, right. So, we see how this | |
| works out in social media where, essentially, AI also runs in | |
| social media. That's what decides what we see. And we are | |
| seeing the effect of that. Well, this is kind of not really | |
| transparent, not really aligned with the societal goal. | |
| So, that is--now think about things like this new | |
| generative models developed essentially in a way when we just | |
| maximize the profit, we just try to get maximum adoption. I'm | |
| worried about that. | |
| Having said that, I do think we can figure it out how to | |
| not stifle innovation, just moderate it so we still can | |
| progress. But just, again, ensure that the companies that we | |
| talk to, they are not only--only driven by profit, but realize | |
| they have some responsibilities, and they need to acknowledge | |
| them. | |
| Ms. Mace. And I would agree. And I think, you know, we've | |
| talked about algorithms for years, like on social media, and | |
| the use of divisiveness of politics today, and each side | |
| getting the extreme of their side and getting fed more of that | |
| information. I sort of feel like it would be--we were putting | |
| it on steroids of the future, immediate future of what the | |
| advances in AI might be. What are your concerns there? | |
| Mr. Mafdry. Yes. So, essentially, I think saying that this | |
| might be like social media on steroids is very much--is very | |
| much justified. So, again, now I told you that ChatGPT will be | |
| so much more pervasive than social media. And, essentially, we | |
| don't exactly know what will be the effects on our thinking | |
| here or like the way our children learn to think. Like, do they | |
| just fully trust what ChatGPT tells them or do they learn how | |
| to reason? | |
| So, again, I'm really worried about this, but I think--and | |
| that is where the government really needs to step up. We can-- | |
| you know, with enough involvement with government, which I | |
| think might not be too much in context of social media, but | |
| here we have to do it differently, and I think that we will do | |
| it well. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you. | |
| I would now like to recognize my esteemed colleague, Mr. | |
| Connolly, for questions. | |
| Mr. Connolly. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman. | |
| Listening to Ms. Hickok and the potential of AI is actually | |
| really positive in terms of how it can complement the quality | |
| of life for humans and make things better and promote peace and | |
| harmony. But we know that technology can be used for good and | |
| evil. | |
| And I'm listening to what you just said, Dr. Mafdry, in | |
| terms of your hope for the government's role. And yet, if you | |
| look at social media and you look at technology in general, | |
| Congress has been very reluctant to get into the game of | |
| regulation. And as a result, awesome power has been developed | |
| by and deployed by entrepreneurs who became billionaires in, | |
| largely, Silicone Valley without any interference by the | |
| government. They make all kinds of massive decisions in terms | |
| of content, in terms of what will or won't be allowed, in terms | |
| of who gets to use it, et cetera. | |
| And so, why should we believe that AI would be much | |
| different in terms of its future in the hands of the Federal | |
| Government? | |
| Mr. Mafdry. Well, again, the hope here is that we will-- | |
| don't play the same playbook we played for social media. And in | |
| particular, I think the point of start here is before we go-- | |
| so, first of all, I want to say that I strongly believe that | |
| regulation is a very important tool to make sure that, you | |
| know, just certain technologies are aligned with like broad | |
| societal benefits, and they need to be used. | |
| Having said that, before we go to premature regulation and | |
| we kind of rush regulation, first of all, even the rush | |
| regulation might not be fast enough for AI because AI is a very | |
| fast moving target. But even we forget, I think what we need to | |
| start, we need to start ask questions. And, in particular, | |
| government needs to ask questions of this company saying, what | |
| are you doing? Why are you doing this? What are the objectives | |
| of the algorithms that you are developing? Why is there no | |
| objectives? How will we know that you are accomplishing these | |
| objectives? How can we have some input into what these | |
| objectives showed. | |
| I think this change of tone, together with the government | |
| recognizing that you cannot abdicate AI to the big tech, as | |
| capable as they are, that they have different use cases. They | |
| have different priorities. Like, that's what needs to change. | |
| If this doesn't change, I'm extremely worried. | |
| Mr. Connolly. Well, I just think, if we look at the past | |
| and we look at social media, I wouldn't bet the farm on any | |
| kind of rapid regulatory regime coming from the Federal | |
| Government. | |
| Mr. Mafdry. And just to clarify, that's what I--that's | |
| exactly what I'm worried about. So, let's have conversations we | |
| can have now. | |
| Mr. Connolly. Right. | |
| Mr. Mafdry. Hopefully, we'll learn from the mistakes. | |
| Mr. Connolly. Thank you. | |
| Dr. Schmidt, you want to see the United States get ahead in | |
| this lane of technology and to compete successfully against the | |
| Chinese. Can you talk a little bit about what is the nature of | |
| that threat? How well are they doing in this sphere, and what | |
| do we need to be concerned about? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. There are four or five companies, Mr. Leader, | |
| that are American or British firms that have extremely large | |
| language models. There's also at least one large one in Baidu | |
| in China. I was interested to note that the largest | |
| noncorporate such example in the world that is not owned by a | |
| corporation is also in Tsinghua University in Beijing. | |
| So, there's every reason to believe that the Chinese | |
| understand everything that we're talking about now extremely | |
| well. They've published their intent, so we can read about it. | |
| And I view it as a national emergency. This technology is so | |
| powerful in terms of its ability to transform science, | |
| innovation, biology, semiconductors, you name it--and along | |
| with quantum, I should add--that we need to get our act | |
| together to win and to win a competition. | |
| If we don't--let me give you some examples. AI can be used | |
| to generate good things in biology, but also lots of bad | |
| viruses. You all have created a Bioterror Commission, which I'm | |
| fortunate to serve on, to take a look at this and the impact of | |
| that. That's another example of national security. | |
| The issues of misinformation of the nation-state could be | |
| very significant. Think about the progress of war and conflict | |
| where decision-making can be done faster than the OODA loop or | |
| faster than human decision-making. These are all challenges, | |
| and our government is behind where it needs to be in the | |
| adoption of these technologies for national security as well. | |
| Mr. Connolly. I just would end by saying, I couldn't agree | |
| with you more. And I think really we need to be looking at sort | |
| of like, you know, the race to the moon kind of shot in, you | |
| know, quantum computing, AI, cyber, 5G. Because if the Chinese | |
| dominate those areas, the future is theirs. | |
| I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Connolly. | |
| I would now like to recognize a fellow South Carolinian, | |
| Congressman Timmons. | |
| Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Madam Chair. That's great to say: | |
| Madam Chairwoman. Congratulations on being the Chair. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you. | |
| Mr. Timmons. First up, thank you so much for your | |
| attendance here today. You all are experts in your field, and | |
| we really appreciate you taking the time to come and share your | |
| thoughts on this important topic. | |
| Congress is grappling with technology. Our country's | |
| grappling with technology. And we're doing our best to try to | |
| figure out a regulatory environment that fosters innovation and | |
| allows economic growth, while managing the potential adverse | |
| impacts that technology can have. | |
| Obviously, we are working on cryptocurrency and digital | |
| assets, and that's a major challenge for us. Congress is not | |
| the youngest, most tech savvy part of our society, and we are | |
| doing our best. | |
| But I do want to talk about AI's potential impact on our | |
| work force, particularly how tech can be leveraged to further | |
| individual efficiency rather than possibly displace workers. | |
| So, Mr. Crowder, I want to start with you. What are the | |
| most promising use cases for AI as a tool in the work force, | |
| and how do you anticipate AI will be--will influence industries | |
| such as the financial services sector? | |
| Mr. Crowder. Yes, I think it's going to be pretty broad. | |
| And one of the exciting things that we didn't really talk about | |
| is that leveraging some of the underlying technologies like | |
| base or foundation models can be applied to things, not just | |
| writing a haiku or coming up with a speech, but also, you know, | |
| looking at language-like things in other fields, like tabular | |
| data and finance, et cetera, et cetera. | |
| So, in addition to the kind of things I talked about fraud | |
| detection, I think we've all experienced, you know, maybe | |
| traveling abroad and having your credit card be declined, and | |
| that's bad for banks because they want that credit card money. | |
| So, even a small percentage improvement in false positives is a | |
| lot of money for our financial institutions. So, there's lots | |
| and lots of applications. | |
| But to your point, I mean, I think we need to look at AI as | |
| augmenting what humans can do as opposed to replace. And I | |
| think good utilization of AI is to make it--make our work force | |
| more efficient. And I would argue one of the things that we do | |
| a good job in the United States is funding basic science. But | |
| we also need to look at how do we encourage our work force to | |
| be able to use the technology as opposed to just develop the | |
| technology. Because I think the use of AI is going to be a | |
| differentiating factor on, you know, making the U.S. Government | |
| as well as our companies more effective and more competitive. | |
| Mr. Timmons. As businesses try to compete in the free | |
| market, they're inevitably going to try to cut costs and | |
| replace work force with technology. What--how are we going to | |
| manage that challenge? | |
| Mr. Crowder. That's a good question. I don't know if I have | |
| a perfect answer for it. But I think having a more productive | |
| work force that is focusing on value creation, I think at the | |
| end of the day is what really drives success in business. And | |
| the more that you can automate tasks that aren't really value | |
| creation so you can free up your workforce to create value, I | |
| think that is good. And I think that is a more positive way of | |
| driving additional productivity as opposed to thinking about it | |
| as removal of cost. | |
| Mr. Timmons. Sure, sure. Dr. Schmidt, what jobs do you | |
| think will be created in the wake of AI and what jobs do you | |
| think will be threatened? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. I think one of the general comments to make is | |
| I've spent 20 years listening to the theme that jobs will be | |
| displaced or lost because of technology. And today we have a | |
| huge shortage of workers to fill the jobs in America. The | |
| biggest category is truck drivers. Remember how truck drivers | |
| are going to be replaced by automation. | |
| So, it looks to me like the most likely scenario in the | |
| next 20 years or so is not enough people to fill these jobs. | |
| And the best way to get people who can fill those jobs, to have | |
| them have better tools, better education, better knowledge, and | |
| a partner, if you will--all of the evidence that I've studied | |
| indicates that having a digital partner increases your wage, | |
| right? Literally, when you are using a computer to help do the | |
| job, the job has a higher salary. | |
| So, it looks to me like as we get more diffusion of this | |
| technology, on average, jobs go up. There are jobs that are | |
| lost, there are jobs that are created. | |
| Mr. Timmons. Sure. I couldn't imagine my life without | |
| Google, Apple, and Amazon. I feel like I'm attached to my | |
| phone. And I haven't been to the grocery store in three years, | |
| and it is great. So, I'm sure that this is going to create | |
| additional opportunities to make my life more efficient and | |
| make me more capable of having a greater impact. So, I | |
| appreciate that. | |
| And thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you. | |
| I now recognize Congressman Lynch for five minutes. | |
| Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Madam Chair. And congratulations to | |
| you and to the Ranking Member. | |
| Dr. Schmidt, in March 2021, the National Security | |
| Commission on Artificial Intelligence released its | |
| comprehensive, I think it was like 800 pages. It actually | |
| defended itself against the risk of being read by its sheer | |
| thickness. But right after your report came out, I was the | |
| Chair of the National Security Subcommittee, and we invited you | |
| to testify regarding that. I see your staff all nodding. They | |
| have painful memories of this, I'm sure. But we invited you in, | |
| and we went over the report. It had 16 major recommendations, | |
| and then probably another 20 other subsidiary ancillary | |
| recommendations. | |
| I'm wondering if you could talk about the progress, or the | |
| lack of progress, we've made over these two years now since you | |
| last testified before this committee about this issue. | |
| You had some very pointed recommendations, you know, for | |
| DARPA. You had recommendations and action items for Congress, | |
| for the executive, for this interagency task force that you | |
| envisioned. | |
| Can you talk a little bit about where you think--how much | |
| progress do you think we have made? And, you know, would you | |
| give us--what kind of grade would you give all of us. | |
| Mr. Schmidt. Well, in the first place, you guys give us the | |
| grade, and we are happy to serve. I would say about half of our | |
| recommendations have been adopted through the NDAA and other | |
| processes. We were kind enough to write the legislation for you | |
| as a hint, and you all were able to adopt it fairly quickly, | |
| and it worked. | |
| The area that I'm most focused on right now is basically | |
| the training problem. And I just don't see the progress in the | |
| government to reform the way it hires and promotes technical | |
| people. As part of the--part of the AI report, we proposed a | |
| civilian, essentially, trading academy for digital skills. And | |
| there are various different forms of this. But I don't think | |
| the government is going to get what it needs unless it has a | |
| program which is modeled on the military academies but for | |
| civilians, where civilians get trained in technology in return | |
| for serving in the government in the civilian capacity to help | |
| the government out. | |
| This is a young person's game. These technologies are too | |
| new. You need new students, new ideas, new invention. I think | |
| that is going to be the fastest way to get it. I don't think | |
| the government is going get there without it. That'd be my | |
| highest--I think that's the largest omission. | |
| Mr. Lynch. Is there a way--so I actually was confronted | |
| with this same problem in my district, where a lot of high-tech | |
| firms, biotech firms moving into the district, and I grew up in | |
| the local public housing projects and those kids--our kids | |
| weren't getting those jobs. So, I started a--I founded a | |
| charter school that focuses on STEM, you know, math, science, | |
| technology. And it's doing really, really well. But it's one | |
| school, you know, out of a hundred. | |
| And is there a way to--I'm not so sure if it is efficacious | |
| to try to take somebody who is coming out of high school or in | |
| college and then make them a tech person. I think it's a much | |
| longer runway and better chances of success if we start at a | |
| very early age. I mean, is there any thoughts about, you know-- | |
| I mean, you know, we are having problems with our public | |
| education system anyway. But is there a way to amp that up at | |
| an early age in early grades to produce the type of workers | |
| that you envision will be necessary to maintain our edge, not | |
| only in artificial intelligence, but everything else we have | |
| got to do. | |
| Mr. Schmidt. Israel does something interesting in this | |
| area. If you are 15 or 16 and a math prodigy, they actually put | |
| you in a special school that is combined with their mandatory | |
| military training. I'm not suggesting a mandatory military | |
| training for our math people. God knows how they would do. But | |
| the important thing is identifying the talent early and then | |
| getting it into the right track. And, again, the educators to | |
| my left can talk about this at more length. | |
| But I think that at a Federal level, the easiest thing to | |
| do is to come up with some program that is administered by the | |
| states or by leading universities. Every state has a big land | |
| grant university that is interested in this. And getting them | |
| money so that they can build these programs, and then they get | |
| paid back for that with service. I like those models, and that | |
| is a model that takes your idea and scales it. There is a lack | |
| of money to build these systems at scale, and that idea or some | |
| variant of it would do it. | |
| Aleksander? | |
| Mr. Lynch. Thank you. | |
| Yes. Mr. Mafdry. | |
| Mr. Mafdry. If I can just add, is that AI's technology is | |
| to learn best by applying it to used cases. And government--so | |
| I actually was discussing exactly this problem with DOD because | |
| they have exactly suffered from this--and instead of thinking | |
| of this is a weakness, this could be a strength. Once it is | |
| tried to apply AI internally to your problems, that's where | |
| people will learn. And this way actually people come, let's say | |
| to DOD, or to government programs for three, five years, and | |
| they come back to the civilian sector. And really like, also, | |
| well, we are lacking this talent also in our civilian economy | |
| too. So, I think that is the way to go, and the government | |
| could play a big role here. | |
| Mr. Lynch. Thank you. | |
| Madam Chair, I know I have another one witness need to | |
| answer the question, but I think I've run out of time. | |
| Mr. Burchett. Chairlady, why don't you let him go. I'm | |
| next, but go ahead. | |
| Mr. Lynch. OK. Ms. Hickok? | |
| Ms. Hickok. I just wanted to follow up with the last remark | |
| as well in terms of education. I echo the task force | |
| nationally. I researched task force reports and recommendations | |
| on democratizing the research and development capabilities | |
| within the Federal Government for the government as well. | |
| Sometimes our brightest minds are forced to go to a handful | |
| of companies and labs and campuses to do their research in | |
| areas that they are interested. But if you have this capacity | |
| within the government's infrastructure as well, that would also | |
| be another way to attract this work force. | |
| And I will expand also the education piece from the schools | |
| to consumers, and expand the education need from technology | |
| jobs to all the jobs. We need lawyers who understand these | |
| concepts. We need sociologists, anthropologists, ethicists, | |
| policymakers. We need understanding and capacity building in | |
| this topic across the whole domain and industry. | |
| Mr. Lynch. Thank you. | |
| Madam Chair, I yield back. And I thank you for the | |
| courtesy, and I thank the gentleman as well. Thank you. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you. | |
| I would now like to yield to Congressman Burchett from | |
| Tennessee. | |
| Mr. Burchett. I'd tell my friend across the aisle, you'll | |
| get nowhere calling me a gentleman; I just want you to know | |
| that. And I didn't miss my thought process when I came in here, | |
| and we have a lady who is chairman and it is international day | |
| of the woman. And I think that is pretty cool that you Chair. | |
| If my momma were alive, she would think that is very cool, too, | |
| because she was a pretty cool lady. | |
| Thank you all for being here. I'm probably the least | |
| qualified person of ever asking y'all questions, but as the | |
| 435th most powerful Member of Congress, I feel very empowered | |
| today, and I'm kind of digging this subject matter. And I'll | |
| try to go through these quick. | |
| Mr. Schmidt, I did Google, brother. And I don't know what | |
| it is. I hit that button--you know, my mom and daddy would | |
| always say look it up. Now I tell my daughter, Google it, | |
| honey. You know, so I think it is pretty cool. | |
| But the development of AI, how will that impact our | |
| international relations specifically with China? I fear what | |
| they will do if they get control of it, as you have stated | |
| there. I think you mentioned the date that they said they were | |
| going to control it, and I would say they probably be doing | |
| that five years ahead of time. | |
| Go ahead, brother. | |
| Mr. Schmidt. Thank you, Congressman. I worry about the | |
| following scenario: In the future, there's a war. It's an | |
| attack by North Korea on the U.S. Sorry. China stops the war | |
| between North Korea and the U.S., and the entire war took one | |
| millisecond. | |
| And the reason I worry about that is I can't figure out how | |
| we are going to build offensive and defensive systems that are | |
| reliable enough to put them in charge of a war that occurs | |
| faster than human decision-making. That, to me, is the ultimate | |
| threat of this technology, that the things occur faster than | |
| humans can judge them. I don't have a good solution for that. | |
| My second observation is that China is very smart, and they | |
| have identified these areas as these underlying technologies to | |
| provide leadership that dominates industries. A good example is | |
| synthetic biology, which is an area which was imbedded in the | |
| United States, likely to be, again, trillions of dollars of | |
| wealth. China has now maximized its investment in this area. | |
| Not only is it good for their national security, but it's good | |
| for their businesses. | |
| So, when you have got a nation-state that's smart, | |
| technocratic, focused on its own defense and innovation, and | |
| proposing its own companies in the form of civil military | |
| fusion, we have got a serious competitor. That's why we have to | |
| act. | |
| Mr. Burchett. Are you aware--or maybe you are not. I'm | |
| not--of the Chinese infiltrating any of our AI companies? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. I am not. You must assume the Chinese have | |
| operatives pretty much everywhere, based on their history. | |
| Mr. Burchett. OK. Is there any way that we could | |
| proactively protect against AI-generated cyber attacks? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. Well, you defend against them. | |
| Mr. Burchett. Right. | |
| Mr. Schmidt. Technology--we looked a lot at this. The | |
| question is could you create the equivalent of a Manhattan | |
| Project that was secret and you'd keep it all in one place, in | |
| one location, New Mexico, what have you. The knowledge is | |
| moving too quickly. There's too many people globally. We are | |
| going to have to win by staying ahead, which means building | |
| powerful defensive systems. | |
| Mr. Burchett. OK. Thank you. | |
| Dr. Mafdry, what are some of the personal risks to personal | |
| privacy that are associated with the use of AI? | |
| Mr. Mafdry. Sir, could you clarify what kind of risk? | |
| Mr. Burchett. Well, I guess I should ask my research | |
| person. As I stated, it is a little out of my league. | |
| Mr. Mafdry. No, I just didn't hear. I just didn't hear. | |
| Mr. Burchett. No, I just said what are some of the | |
| potential risks? | |
| Mr. Mafdry. I see. So, again, there is many, and they | |
| really depend which sector you look at because there are | |
| different levels of credibility. So, one of them and like the | |
| one big risk, and that's something I research myself so I'm | |
| intimately familiar with, this technology is not fully | |
| reliable. It works most of the time, but not always. | |
| Mr. Burchett. It's not fully what? I didn't---- | |
| Mr. Mafdry. It's not fully reliable. So essentially, it | |
| works most of the time but not always. And then what is worse, | |
| you might not realize when it's not working. OK. So, for | |
| instance, in ChatGPT they hallucinate things sometimes, and you | |
| might not realize they are hallucinating things because it | |
| looks very convincing. | |
| The other aspect of this is, essentially, as the systems | |
| ingest our data, they can really essentially know us better | |
| than we do. And again, that was true also of Google, also of | |
| the social media, but I think with this next generation of | |
| models, this will become even more so. | |
| And then the third level of risk is exactly the one that | |
| Dr. Schmidt talked about. I'm actually really worried about | |
| that. Not even about the actual war happening, but us preparing | |
| for the war like something can go wrong. And it becomes like | |
| when things are happening within a millisecond, like, we have | |
| no good intuition or no good ways to actually figure out how to | |
| make it safe. | |
| Mr. Burchett. OK. Thank you. | |
| Running out of time but, Dr. Crowder, real quickly, how | |
| will the quantum computing impact the security of encrypted | |
| data? | |
| Mr. Crowder. In the long-term, quantum computers, someone | |
| proved on a blackboard, that a lot of our current cryptography, | |
| how we basically send keys around and how we digitally sign | |
| things, eventually will get broken by a quantum computer. The | |
| good news is that people have come up with algorithms that | |
| quantum computers are not good at solving and classical | |
| computers are not good at solving. | |
| So, our challenge is really transitioning from the | |
| cryptography we use today to that new form of cryptography. And | |
| we want to do that as quickly as possible once we have got | |
| really safe standards because we're worried that people will | |
| take all the data today and decrypt it later. So, for some | |
| applications, that doesn't matter, but for a lot of | |
| applications that makes a big deal. | |
| Mr. Burchett. OK. Thank you. I've run out of time. | |
| Chairlady, thank you, ma'am, very much. | |
| Ms. Mace. You did a great job. | |
| I would now like to recognize Congressman Mfume. | |
| Mr. Mfume. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Again, my real | |
| thanks to you and the Ranking Member for having discussions | |
| that led us to this point. | |
| This, for lack of a better term, has scared the hell out of | |
| me. And I thought I knew something about AI. I'm bopping around | |
| on the campus talking to students in a classroom now and then | |
| teaching them, but what I have heard today is unlike anything I | |
| have ever heard, particularly in terms of our national | |
| security. | |
| I think the Chairwoman mentioned or quoted Einstein a few | |
| minutes ago. He also said that great minds have always | |
| encountered violent opposition from mediocre spirits. And I | |
| don't know if you are encountering violent opposition, but I | |
| think you are encountering a great deal of inattentive or | |
| unattentive population groups who just, for whatever reason, | |
| are not paying attention to what is going on. It is very scary, | |
| and I would strongly support, Madam Chair, any future hearings | |
| on this. I just don't that think we have much of a choice. It | |
| is that imperative. | |
| Dr. Schmidt, you said it was a national imperative, almost | |
| a national emergency. That got my attention, and it will keep | |
| my attention. | |
| I don't know that we can do enough to ring the bell on this | |
| so that our institutions, whether it's government or business | |
| or academia, all start paying the kind of attention that we | |
| really, really need. | |
| Dr. Mafdry, you, in your testimony, talked about the | |
| overarching points. And the fourth one you talked about was | |
| that we pay attention, critical attention, to the artificial | |
| intelligence supply chain, that it will structure the | |
| distribution of power in a new AI world. Could you take just a | |
| moment to explain that? | |
| Mr. Mafdry. Of course. So, essentially the way AI is being | |
| deployed right now is no longer just one entity who gathers the | |
| data, trains the model, and applies it and deploys it to a | |
| given task. The way things happen is that there is a supply | |
| chain, in particular with this new generative models, like, | |
| they are very expensive to train, but they are very capable. | |
| And essentially what happens is that, you know, one of these | |
| companies--there is very few companies that can afford training | |
| such a model--they essentially develop it and then let other | |
| companies build on top of it. | |
| So, think of this as just like having initial capability | |
| and just adjusting it. For instance, you have a model like | |
| ChatGPT. It is able to summarize texts and understand to some | |
| extent the texts. So, maybe you have a hiring tool that then | |
| you build on top of it that essentially uses this capability to | |
| screen resumes and something. There is many risks there, but | |
| this is just an example. So, we are heading this kind of supply | |
| chain of interdependencies. | |
| And again, we have upstream where there is very few | |
| players. There is very few critical important models on which a | |
| lot of the economy depends, and then there are all these | |
| interactions between these other things. So, this is something | |
| that now we have to think. There's an ecosystem. | |
| Mr. Mfume. I see. I see. | |
| This sort of boasting that China has been doing that, by | |
| 2030, they will be the dominant player is scary also. And the | |
| fact that the universities in Beijing and elsewhere are openly | |
| sort of trying to develop this and develop thinking that way, | |
| and that it's only seven years from now makes me, again, very | |
| concerned. | |
| I want to talk about risk for just a moment, and then my | |
| time will have expired. This whole notion of a war and | |
| decisions being made with the use of AI in a millisecond that | |
| counter and then counter-counter the decision. I don't know to | |
| what extent the military establishment--I assume they're | |
| looking at this as much as you are, but it is interesting. | |
| Now, I'd like to ask also, there are, as you know, fallible | |
| algorithms. You know better than I. They are just misleading or | |
| they are incorrect. What happens in consumerism, in business, | |
| in law enforcement, in military context that frighten you the | |
| most as risk as a result of an infallible algorithm? Any of | |
| you? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. Quickly, the biggest issue, as I mentioned, is | |
| the compression of time. Let's assume you have time. Then the | |
| question is, who gets to decide between the system and the | |
| human? And I'm very concerned about a misalignment of interests | |
| where the human has one set of incentives, the computer has | |
| been trained against a different set of outcomes, and the whole | |
| society wants an even different goal. | |
| And I spent lots of time with the military, who I'm really, | |
| really proud of and fond of, and they all want systems that | |
| help them automate their decisions. In practice, their use of | |
| technology will be largely to replace boring and uninteresting | |
| jobs, like watching TVs and things like that. These are things | |
| like Project Maven and its successors and so forth. So, I think | |
| at the moment, the government at the military level is going to | |
| use these more for sensing and analysis and not decision- | |
| making. Just to make it very clear, I think we would all agree | |
| it is not ready to make a final life critical decision. It may | |
| never be, but it is certainly not now. | |
| Mr. Mfume. Yes. Thank you. My time is expired. | |
| Thank you, Madam Chair, appreciate it. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you. Great questions. | |
| I would now like to recognize Congressman Burlison. | |
| Mr. Burlison. Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| I, for one, am not afraid of the advent of AI. In fact, I | |
| want to welcome our future overlords. But I will say, I do see | |
| a lot of promise. You know, working in healthcare technology, | |
| we see an amazing opportunity to be able to comb the data | |
| records of patients, be able to use--be able to take that data | |
| and be able to accurately diagnose better than probably any | |
| medical professional possibly ever could to a greater degree of | |
| accuracy what you might be facing. To me, there is tremendous | |
| opportunity, but I also do recognize some of the threats, | |
| obviously. | |
| To that end, my question for you, Dr. Schmidt, first is | |
| that, given the state--the size and scope of the equipment | |
| that's necessary today, we're limited to what actors do have | |
| the ability to use AI, right? So, at least we know who has | |
| access to it, who's utilizing it. It's not like we have people | |
| in a Nigerian criminal syndicate using AI at this point. Is | |
| that correct? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. I can assure you it is coming because of | |
| diffusion. Basically, the models are trained very expensively, | |
| but when they're used for inference, which is where they answer | |
| questions, it's quite simple. So, I would expect us to see | |
| terrorists, other bad actors begin to use this technology in | |
| ways that we should anticipate. | |
| Mr. Burlison. And they--but at this point, they would have | |
| to access it on another platform. Someone would have to spend | |
| the resources to develop the tech--to house the data, et | |
| cetera? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. And Aleksander can--Professor Mafdry can help | |
| me here because we work together. The simplest way to | |
| understand it is the training part is really expensive, but you | |
| can take the trained information and put it on a laptop, and | |
| then it can be used. So unfortunately, in this scenario, all | |
| you need is a computer or a phone to do your evil acts. | |
| Mr. Burlison. OK. Dr. Crowder, my question to you relates | |
| to the quantum computers. These too, these are machines that | |
| you just couldn't walk around, handheld devices, right? Can you | |
| walk us through what it takes to--what the environment | |
| requirements are, what it takes to have a quantum computer? | |
| Mr. Crowder. Yes. I mean, the--we deploy them right now in | |
| regular data centers, but they are not laptops. They are not | |
| mobile phones. They are large, complex systems, and they are | |
| very, very hard to calibrate and manage, and that is a major | |
| trade secret of how to keep them up and running. That's | |
| probably going to be true for quite a while. | |
| So, you know, right now, we don't actually sell systems. We | |
| sell cloud access, because there's a small number of people who | |
| know how to actually keep them running, operating, et cetera, | |
| et cetera. So, you know, obviously that has some benefits from | |
| an IP protection security point of view as well. | |
| Mr. Burlison. And so, this is being used at what scale? How | |
| many businesses or---- | |
| Mr. Crowder. So, we have over 200 partners, and we | |
| carefully select what regions of the world we do business in | |
| and carefully select who we partner with. But we have got over | |
| 200 industry and academic and research partners who are | |
| leveraging--we've got about 26 computers right now that are | |
| accessible via the cloud. | |
| Mr. Burlison. To that end, I know that from other testimony | |
| from other hearings, we have been hearing that the Chinese | |
| Government has a pattern of sending students to American | |
| universities, who then are able to glean data in working in | |
| cooperation on some of these projects. | |
| Are you aware of that activity? | |
| Mr. Crowder. Not personally aware of that activity. We | |
| obviously are very--for business reasons for our, whatever you | |
| want to call them, crown jewels or most protected IP, we are | |
| very careful not to--we are very careful who is part of that | |
| work. | |
| Mr. Burlison. And then again, my last question to you is, | |
| in the subject of quantum entanglement, has that had any real | |
| world applications or potential real world applications? | |
| Mr. Crowder. Right now, nobody from our perspective have | |
| proved that there is practical use, which means it is better | |
| than simulating it or just using classical computers. But we | |
| think that is going to change in the next very soon amount of | |
| time. The computers are getting rapidly advancing, and we think | |
| by the middle of this decade, there will be practical use. | |
| We are working with a lot of, you know, U.S. companies on | |
| applications today. I had mentioned a couple of them before, | |
| like Boeing on looking at better airplane wing optimization | |
| materials, fraud detection for banks, looking at medical health | |
| records and trying to predict more efficient treatment for | |
| patients with healthcare, like sciences companies. We have a | |
| big partnership with Cleveland Clinic looking more broadly | |
| across five sciences. But it is not practical today to be | |
| better than what we have classical. But we think that's going | |
| to come in the next couple of years. | |
| Mr. Burlison. Thank you. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you. | |
| I would now like to recognize Congressman Gomez for five | |
| minutes. | |
| Mr. Gomez. Thank you, Madam Chair. | |
| Before we begin, I want to--I was thinking about this: How | |
| do we rank AI in the history of development in humankind? It is | |
| something that I believe is--could be extremely startling. It's | |
| one issue that I have random people bring up to me on the | |
| streets. Some people compare it to the invention of the | |
| television or computer, or the internet, and I think it's | |
| beyond that, because this is something that--it makes it hard | |
| to discern something that you are looking at, a photo, a video, | |
| or even words on a piece of paper if it was actually written or | |
| developed by a human. | |
| And that is something that I think most people are trying | |
| to wrap their minds around. How is this revolutionary | |
| technology going to fundamentally change the way we live our | |
| lives, the way we interact with one another, the way we | |
| interpret information that is coming in? Because when you can't | |
| discern what is actually created by a person and what is | |
| developed by a computer program, then people start questioning | |
| all sorts of things. | |
| And that's one of the challenges. Maybe that is a | |
| philosophical challenge. Maybe it is a real life government | |
| regulatory challenge, but it is something that really, I think, | |
| is at the heart of it, when people start to question what is | |
| real and what is not. | |
| But I recognize it has--AI has a lot of great potential. | |
| Everything from predicting new variants of COVID to detecting | |
| certain types of cancers that doctors miss. The potential is | |
| staggering. But people want guardrails on this new technology. | |
| If not, it can and will be misused. | |
| When I first got elected, one of the--somebody ran a test | |
| of Members of Congress, and there was about--I think it was | |
| about 28 of us that got matched with people that had committed | |
| crimes. And this was under the best circumstances. They were | |
| using our photos from our websites that were taken with the | |
| best lighting and the best quality. So, AI has a potential also | |
| to have inherent bias built into it, and it often | |
| disproportionately impacts people of color, women, and that is | |
| a concern. | |
| So, how do we address those limitations on AI? How do we | |
| safeguard against the violation of people's civil liberties? | |
| And this is something that even my--when Mark Meadows was on | |
| this committee, him and I and others agreed that this was a | |
| problem. We just couldn't figure out a solution. | |
| So, Ms. Hickok, how can Congress best help address AI's | |
| racial bias? What can we do as a body and the Federal | |
| Government do to protect individual's civil liberties and, at | |
| times, their right to privacy as well? | |
| Ms. Hickok. Thank you for the question. And I'm really | |
| thankful that you mentioned the civil liberties, because with | |
| AI systems, as I mentioned earlier, you're talking about every | |
| single industry and domain that is going to be--is going to be | |
| even further impacted by this. | |
| You talk about civil liberties and access to resources and, | |
| unfortunately, that spans from anything from housing to | |
| employment to education to insurance loan to policing and | |
| criminal justice decisions and judiciary decisions. My concern | |
| is, as AI also, if you don't have the guardrails now and these | |
| systems are imbedded in the public sector services as well as | |
| private services, that they are also going to eventually | |
| connected. | |
| So, one erroneous decision from one system is going to be | |
| the input to another system, and we are going to completely | |
| lock people out of resources and opportunities, and that is | |
| going to widen the gap between haves and have nots. And it is | |
| also going to widen the gap within the society that we are all | |
| trying to narrow. | |
| How can we narrow that? How can we keep the systems | |
| accountable? It is really about the people and organizations | |
| and how we use them that we should be focusing on. Putting the | |
| civil liberty is putting the freedoms and rights at the center | |
| of it, and making sure that these systems--the systems that we | |
| use, especially that impact the resources and the rights, are | |
| built accountably, transparently, replicable. We heard from my | |
| co-panelists and witnesses that a lot of the times the systems | |
| are opaque. We don't know how they work, and we also cannot | |
| replicate the decisions. | |
| So, you might be denied a credit. You might be denied | |
| insurance or a job. It might not be--if you are trying to keep | |
| the organization accountable, we will not be able to trace back | |
| and keep them liable as well. So, we need to make sure from the | |
| start, from the very start, from the design data and design | |
| stages, that we put those guardrails in place, and we keep | |
| organizations and the users accountable. | |
| Mr. Gomez. Thank you. And my time has expired, but the | |
| question is: Is it too late to put those guardrails on? | |
| Ms. Hickok. It is not at all. In fact, at CAIDP, our | |
| students, especially our law students, asked that question last | |
| week, is it too late, is it inevitable, has the ship sailed? | |
| No, it is not. The humans, organizations, lawmakers, the | |
| humans, the users behind it hold the power. | |
| Mr. Gomez. Thank you so much. I yield back. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you, Congressman. | |
| I would now like to recognize Congresswoman Greene. | |
| Ms. Greene. Thank you. I think this is a very important | |
| hearing to have as AI is progressing and working in a lot of | |
| different sectors. And I really appreciate each of you being | |
| here. | |
| I'm definitely not an expert in AI, but I would like to | |
| talk about the fears and concerns that people in my district | |
| and people all over the country have when it comes to AI. | |
| We certainly don't like the idea of AI replacing humans and | |
| replacing people, especially when it comes to jobs. And so, | |
| when there's headlines like Alphabet announcing 12,000 job cuts | |
| globally while chief executive officer singled out AI as the | |
| key investment area, that is what people start to think about. | |
| Or when Microsoft announces its $10 billion investment in | |
| OpenAI just days after saying it would lay off 10,000 | |
| employees, those are the kinds of things people think about. | |
| Now, there is a difference between robotics and AI. | |
| Obviously, robotics are a good thing. For example, tightening | |
| bolts or moving heavy objects like in manufacturing, we really | |
| appreciate that. But when it comes to AI being able to be | |
| smarter than humans or replace humans on the job, I think that | |
| is a major concern, especially for a country that's over $30 | |
| trillion in debt and an economy that is struggling. | |
| This is something also concerning for education, learning | |
| that ChatGPT scored higher than many people on the MBA exam | |
| that was administered at Penn's elite Wharton School. That's | |
| definitely concerning, especially when thinking about how that | |
| could affect education. Just recently, ChatGPT was--is | |
| currently banned in New York City schools over cheating | |
| concerns, but then you think about what would this look like if | |
| AI became teachers, especially after the devastation caused to | |
| children's education levels, but also more importantly, kids | |
| being taught at home on computers. That was more devastating to | |
| them. | |
| The idea that AI could replace software engineers, | |
| journalists, graphic designers, that is also extremely | |
| concerning. So, I think these are important conversations to | |
| have. | |
| But something that happened, I just learned about in | |
| researching for this hearing, was that there are scams that | |
| happen to people where AI is so intelligent, it is able to | |
| imitate people's voices and images. And there is been people | |
| taken advantage of in horrible ways where they have gotten | |
| phone calls from who they thought was their loved ones but was | |
| not. And their loved one, which was really an artificial | |
| intelligence voice, mimicking their loved one was calling for | |
| help in serious distress, and then they got scammed out of a | |
| lot of money. That's terrifying and concerning that that can | |
| happen. | |
| But another thing that happened recently was when San | |
| Francisco officials voted in December against a controversial | |
| measure that would have allowed police to deploy robots to use | |
| lethal force in extreme situations, but this happened after the | |
| San Francisco Board of Supervisors came a week--it was a week | |
| after the board voted to approve the policy to allow what | |
| people called killer robots. But this is what people think | |
| about when they think of AI. They think of a robot that has the | |
| artificial intelligence to replace the police officer. | |
| But then the application to the military is where I thought | |
| was pretty concerning. | |
| Dr. Schmidt, I wanted to ask you, because I took to Google | |
| on this issue. And I wanted--I saw a headline that said ``AI's | |
| impact on warfare will be as big as nuclear weapons.'' And I | |
| also saw another headline that said ``Eric Schmidt Is Building | |
| the Perfect AI War-Fighting Machine.'' So, I thought you would | |
| be the perfect person to ask about this. Could you explain a | |
| little bit? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. Let me be clear, that's for the benefit of the | |
| United States. | |
| Ms. Greene. Only if it is in the United States' hands, | |
| though, Dr. Schmidt. | |
| Mr. Schmidt. And it will be. | |
| The trends in the military are fundamentally autonomy and | |
| drones and intelligence sensing gathering. The military spends | |
| most of its time looking at things and trying to analyze it. | |
| So, in the near term, the benefits to the military are | |
| profound. It allows the service people who we have trained | |
| exquisitely who are watching dumb screens to use their higher | |
| factory skills and have the computer say, hey, look, this tank | |
| moved or, hey, this thing happened over here, can you analyze | |
| it. | |
| I think a better framing for your constituents' fear is to | |
| say that AI will make the people much more successful in what | |
| they do, and that will drive higher incomes, higher jobs. And I | |
| think that that's the best, at least in the next 20 years, | |
| narrative about AI. It is true in the military. It is true in | |
| civilians as well. | |
| Ms. Greene. One more question. My time is expired, but how | |
| do we--with China and their ability to constantly spy on us and | |
| steal our technology and information, how could we prevent | |
| China from stealing this type of artificial intelligence with | |
| our military? And thank you. | |
| Mr. Schmidt. Of course. The bad news is that these research | |
| ideas are in the public domain and international, so we can't | |
| prevent China from getting it. The Trump and Biden | |
| administrations have done a good job of restricting access to | |
| hardware, which is helpful. So good job, all of you. | |
| With respect to software, the biggest answer is more | |
| software people, trained in the West, trained under our values, | |
| building systems that you as our Representative have some level | |
| of regulatory control over. When they do it in China, you can't | |
| pass a law to change that, but you can in the United States. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you. | |
| All right. I would like to now toss it over to Congressman | |
| Khanna for five minutes. | |
| Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for your | |
| leadership, for your bipartisan cooperation and collaboration | |
| on the quantum bill, and the approach you have taken to work | |
| across the aisle. | |
| Dr. Schmidt, I respect your leadership in Silicon Valley. | |
| There's a paradox in my mind that I would love your insight. On | |
| the one hand, DARPA in the Department of Defense gave us the | |
| internet, as you know, with Vinton Cerf, gave us GPS, gave us | |
| the drone, gave us the mouse, probably the most innovation in | |
| the history of the 20th century, defense technology. And yet, | |
| now it seems there is this problem of the adoption of | |
| innovative technology. | |
| Why is the model that gave us all of this revolutionary | |
| technology not working? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. Thank you, Congressman. And you have really | |
| helped in a lot of these areas. | |
| If you go back to Vannevar Bush, the National Science | |
| Foundation, and DARPA, those are the engines that got us all | |
| here. We are all here fundamentally because of early decisions | |
| made by the Federal Government to invest in researchers who | |
| then we built on top of. So, I'm incredibly grateful to them. | |
| In the case of the government, and particularly the | |
| military, those innovations go into a bureaucracy that is not | |
| organized in a way to take them. And a simple example is | |
| software. The military is organized around procurements of a | |
| 15-year cycle and complicated bidding among a small number of | |
| contractors. That is not how software works. And a number of us | |
| have worked hard to get software treated more as a continuous | |
| process. But the military, for example, would benefit by a | |
| large expansion of a number of more software people, just | |
| fixing stuff, making things work, making them smarter. That is | |
| a simple thing that you could do. | |
| Mr. Khanna. To that end, what do you think about an actual | |
| service academy around technology, cyber, AI? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. We looked hard at creating a military service | |
| academy when I was doing the AI commission. And the military | |
| has really, really good people in their academies. And what | |
| they do is, because of the way military promotions work, you | |
| take some brilliant person, you make them go stand guard duty | |
| for a while, which is stupid. Sorry to be blunt. It is much | |
| better to change the HR policies, which the military is trying | |
| to do now. In particular, Secretary Brown in the Air Force is | |
| trying to create a technical path to keep these people. That is | |
| how you solve that problem. And let me give the rest of my time | |
| to Aleksander. | |
| Mr. Mafdry. Yes. So, I just wanted to add because it is a | |
| very important question that you ask. So, I actually happen to | |
| co-lead and codevelop at MIT an executive education class, AI | |
| for national security leaders, which essentially hosts a number | |
| of general offices from Pentagon and other places to come and | |
| learn about AI. And this is a three-day program. Half of this | |
| program is not about AI; it's about organizational management | |
| aspects. | |
| So, this is what you recognize. There's a lot of | |
| frustration in DOD in your top military leaders that the | |
| technology is developed. DARPA did their part, although they | |
| should do more particularly in generative languages. But then | |
| we hit the bureaucracy. And there is just a lot of | |
| organizational problems that are kind of silly that the DOD is | |
| completely crippled in terms of adoption of AI. So, that is | |
| where we need the attention. | |
| Mr. Khanna. Well, I look forward to working with you | |
| [inaudible] with Representative Mace and Representative | |
| Gallagher. | |
| One other question--I mean, I'm back home in Silicon | |
| Valley. It seems the new thing there is everyone is doing AI. | |
| I'd be curious, Dr. Schmidt and Dr. Mafdry, how do you see-- | |
| will Silicon Valley lead the world in AI? How are we doing | |
| compared to China? | |
| And then one comment from my own version of American | |
| exceptionalism, it drives me crazy when Europeans are lecturing | |
| us about AI and technology. You know, I don't see Google, | |
| Apple, Tesla. I get they say they are going to innovate in | |
| policy, they are going to also innovate in technology. How are | |
| we compared to Europe as well? | |
| Mr. Schmidt. My cynical answer about Europe is that Europe | |
| is going to lead in regulation and, therefore, not lead in | |
| anything else. Their efforts do not appear to be successful, as | |
| you have pointed out. | |
| The reason we are so excited about AI is that anything that | |
| makes humans smarter and makes algorithms smarter and makes | |
| discoveries quicker is a horizontal technology that is | |
| transformative. The opportunities to make basic advancements | |
| outside of language models, right, are profound in terms of | |
| science, materials, plastics, every kind of logistics, every | |
| kind of analytical problem, as has been summarized by the | |
| panel. | |
| So, I think that AI is here to stay. It is the next big | |
| wave. I don't know when it will end, but we are still very | |
| early. Remember, we still don't understand exactly how these | |
| algorithms work. We also don't understand how big the models | |
| have to be. At some point, we'll know. But we are not anywhere | |
| close to being able to answer those questions. | |
| Mr. Mafdry. If I can just add very quickly because you | |
| asked the question about Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is | |
| doing great. They will do great job. They are clearly | |
| harnessing this progress, but we as a country should not | |
| abdicate the progress on the strategically important technology | |
| just for Silicon Valley. Again, they will do great, but we | |
| should be doing more, and the U.S. Government should be doing | |
| more. | |
| Mr. Schmidt. Speaking as a professor at MIT. | |
| Mr. Mafdry. Yes. But I like Silicon Valley. | |
| Ms. Mace. In closing this afternoon, first of all, I just | |
| want to thank you all, all of our panelists for your time and | |
| your talent and everything that you have shared with us today. | |
| This will be, Congressman Mfume, the first of a series of | |
| hearings that I hope that we'll have on AI. I don't think that | |
| we are ready for what is going to happen in a very short period | |
| of time. And I think, if it is not happening already, it will | |
| be in the next five years where AI will be programming AI, and | |
| then what's next? | |
| And so, this was a great first discussion to start this | |
| conversation about what needs--what we need to be talking about | |
| in regards to this. | |
| So, in closing, I want to thank all of our panelists once | |
| again for your insightful testimony today. You have given us a | |
| tremendous amount to think about, and AI was created by humans, | |
| but it doesn't mean that it is going to be easy for all of us, | |
| especially up here on the Hill, to grasp what is before us and | |
| what is imminently coming. We appreciate the panel's expertise | |
| and ability to shed light on the state of the science and the | |
| broader societal implications that policymakers must consider. | |
| And I would like to yield to the Ranking Member, | |
| Congressman Connolly, for your closing remarks. | |
| Mr. Connolly. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman. | |
| And I found this an intriguing conversation, but wanting | |
| more. And like Mr. Mfume, I think we have opened the door to a | |
| lot further in-depth exploration, hopefully by this | |
| Subcommittee and by the Congress, because there are lots of | |
| issues we have to face. | |
| And while you may be right, Dr. Schmidt, about dismissing | |
| the Europeans as regulators but not innovators, on the other | |
| hand, given what we heard from Ms. Hickok and Dr. Mafdry about | |
| the need for some Federal intervention here, there have to be | |
| guidelines and guideposts so that we are off on the right foot | |
| and not facing profound issues later on where the technology is | |
| advanced and we never either anticipated it or addressed it. | |
| Maybe there are things we can learn from the Europeans in the | |
| regulatory guidelines, either things not to do or things to do. | |
| But any rate, I just think there is a lot more for us to | |
| explore, and I really appreciate this being the first of a | |
| series of hearings. | |
| Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I yield back. | |
| Ms. Mace. Thank you. And I look forward to working with | |
| everyone on both sides of the aisle on this issue. It is very | |
| important. | |
| With that and without objection, all Members will have five | |
| legislative days within which to submit materials and to submit | |
| additional written questions for the witnesses which will be | |
| forwarded to the witnesses for their response. | |
| If there is no further business, without objection, my | |
| first Subcommittee stands adjourned. | |
| [Whereupon, at 3:57 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] | |
| [all] | |
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