Hearing comes as lawmakers and agencies in the U.S. and worldwide scramble to address AI in the wake of headline-grabbing developments over the past year.
Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg are among the big names from Big Tech slated to appear at the Senate’s closed-door AI Insight Forum on Sept. 13.
“Both parties recognize that AI is something we can’t ignore, but we need a lot of help understanding the best way forward,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a Sept. 7 announcement of the closed-door hearing.
Mr. Schumer, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), and Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) are the bipartisan leaders of the forum. Mr. Rounds and Mr. Heinrich are co-chairs of the Senate AI Caucus, in which Mr. Young also participates.
Mr. Musk of Twitter/X and SpaceX, Meta’s Mr. Zuckerberg, and Microsoft founder Mr. Gates will be joined by other top figures in the tech world, including Sam Altman of OpenAI and Sundar Pichai of Alphabet.
“It’s an effort to make sure that our colleagues are getting information directly from some of these leaders,” Mr. Rounds said in a conversation with Mr. Heinrich at a Washington Post Live event on Sept. 12, as reported by MeriTalk.
In addition, Charles Rivkin of the Motion Picture Association, a film trade organization, will be present. Mr. Rivkin’s appearance comes during an ongoing, months-long strike by members of the Writers Guild of America. The striking writers are concerned in part that ChatGPT and comparable tools could replace them.
Other attendees include Democratic donor Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology. Mr. Harris has previously cautioned Congress that “conspiracy theories” may spread if technology is not regulated more strongly, specifically citing work by Alex Jones and InfoWars.
Another Democratic mega-donor, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, is also expected at the event, as is Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers.
A May report on AI from the Department of Education maintains that the agency “firmly rejects the idea that AI could replace teachers.”
