US Chamber commission says AI regulation should be ‘top priority’ for Congress

A commission launched by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday urged Congress and the Biden administration to create rules for artificial intelligence (AI), calling its regulation a “top priority.”

The corporate lobbying group’s AI commission, which is led by former Reps. John Delaney (D-Md.) and Mike Ferguson (R-N.J.), said that “virtually every business and government agency” will use AI within the next 10 to 20 years.

The U.S. is “uniquely situated” to lead the AI regulation effort, thanks to its technological superiority, legal system and alliances with fellow democracies, the Chamber’s commission wrote in its report.

“Policy leaders must undertake initiatives to develop thoughtful laws and rules for the development of responsible AI and its ethical deployment,” the commission wrote. “A failure to regulate AI will harm the economy, potentially diminish individual rights, and constrain the development and introduction of beneficial technologies.”

The commission, which collected insights from 87 experts, said that policymakers should focus on filling gaps in the law. While the report was short on specifics, it called for policies to promote human rights and innovation, prepare the workforce for an AI-centric environment and empower the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to speed the review of AI-related applications. 

The Chamber frequently lobbies against stricter government regulations, but the report indicates that large U.S. companies want to play a key role in crafting the rules for AI. 

“At the core of the debate is this simple premise — for Americans to reap the benefits of AI, people must trust it,” David Hirschmann, president and CEO of the Chamber’s technology engagement center, said in a statement.

Congress doesn’t appear anywhere close to crafting AI rules, even as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other AI systems begin to quickly take the world by storm, prompting fears that they could soon replace human jobs. 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said last month that government regulation of AI is “critical” as systems grow more powerful and disruptive. 

“Although current-generation AI tools aren’t very scary, I think we are potentially not that far away from potentially scary ones,” Altman tweeted.