What are federal lawmakers considering as they work to regulate AI?

Last week, tech leaders flew to the nation’s capital for a mostly closed-door meeting led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), where they shared their vision for the future of AI regulation.

Congress is looking to avoid some of the pitfalls legislators discovered as they were working on regulation surrounding social media. But AI development threatens to outpace their governance.

Part of the strategy may be to chip away at the problem with smaller bills as lawmakers learn more, said Bloomberg's Seattle Bureau Chief Anna Edgerton, who covered last week's meeting.

"I think it's going to be some time before we see any comprehensive AI legislation," she explained. "Schumer right now is kind of setting the framework for this, like he did for the CHIPS and Science Act."

In the meantime, state legislatures are already laying some groundwork in the realm of data privacy, which is something U.S. House Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA) has been pushing for.

DelBene argues that a national data privacy standard has to be the foundation before anything else goes forward with AI regulation.

"When we look at what policies we want to put in place for AI," DelBene said. "Fundamentally, we have to start with data — making sure that we have consumer data privacy protections so that you have control of your information."

Transparency, she added, is a major component of that.

"People need to know what their rights are," DelBene added. "We need to make sure that it's in very clear language — plain English for folks to understand — [and] we need to make sure that folks opt in."

But, DelBene added, "We need to make sure that companies are following the guidelines. We shouldn't wait till something goes wrong."

Listen to Soundside’s full conversation with Edgerton and DelBene by clicking the play icon at the top of this story.