Rep. Jay Obernolte argued that regulation on A.I. is necessary to protect Americans' data, but it's important to understand the specific dangers of AI and make wise decisions to stimulate the growth of the industry without stifling it on "Special Report."
AI EXPERTS WEIGH DANGERS, BENEFITS OF CHATGPT ON HUMANS, JOBS AND INFORMATION: ‘DYSTOPIAN WORLD’
REP. JAY OBERNOLTE: I think that when we seek to regulate something, it's important to understand why we are regulating it. That why is very important. In other words, what are we trying to prevent? What are we afraid of? And in the case of A.I., it's not clear, especially given the specifics of this letter, what that why is. What is clear is that A.I. can have some incredibly beneficial uses in our society and almost certainly will have a positive impact on us as human beings. We need to make sure that we make wise decisions about how to regulate so that we stimulate the growth of this incredible industry without stifling it and at the same time implement the protections that are necessary to protect Americans data from this new technology.
…
It's important to think about what the dangers of A.I. are. I don't worry about evil robots taking over the world with their red laser eyes, that's not what keeps me up at night. But what does keep me up at night is the implementation of a surveillance state, like China is attempting to do, the creation of monopolistic like controls over A.I. by corporations that control large amounts of data, you know that I do worry about. I also think it's important to realize the limitations of our ability to regulate, because even if we clamp down on the development of new A.I., unscrupulous actors are still going to be developing it for economic gain. Foreign adversaries are still going to be developing it, too, for a competitive advantage over our country. We're not going to be able to stop those things, and so we need to have an understanding of this technology to protect our competitive advantage and our national security.
