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Two Senate Republicans said Tuesday that providing antitrust exemptions to artificial intelligence companies to facilitate discussions on how to make AI safer should be taken off the table \u2014 as lawmakers discuss ways to respond to industry warnings about the need for guardrails on the rapidly evolving technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo watch AI CEOs saying, \u2018We’re about to destroy the world so give us control of the government so we can lock in our monopoly status and prevent any innovators from challenging us,\u2019 is just lunacy,\u201d Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel. \u201cAnd, by the way, if you\u2019re about to destroy the world, how about, don\u2019t. How about, stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) also piled on.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d Hawley said. \u201cThere is no world in which I will consent to giving the most powerful companies in the history of the world \u2014 a small group of three or four of them \u2014 antitrust exemptions from our laws so that they can, what, collude together?\u201d<\/p>\n

Their comments come amid rising fears that AI models could soon become advanced enough to evade human control if left unchecked. The chief executives of leading AI labs are sounding the alarm over the need to slow down progress, and one possibility could be for Congress to provide an antitrust carveout to allow competing companies to enter into agreements to stem the tide.<\/p>\n

Patel didn\u2019t directly address the antitrust comments at the hearing Tuesday but did provide insight into how the FBI is thinking about the emerging technology.<\/p>\n

The department, Patel said, uses AI models under test case scenarios to make sure they are cooperating with federal law, adding that it\u2019s important to pursue those who create AI models with criminal intent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to go after the people who created these models that are going rogue with the specific purpose and intention to commit a criminal act,\u201d Patel said, noting that the FBI “can’t be punishing people if they created something lawfully\u201d and then a criminal used it for nefarious acts.<\/p>\n

Patel also said the FBI doesn\u2019t need to create a new division to take on the issue \u2014 the existing cyber division is sufficient \u2014 but could use additional resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need federal funding to go out there and buy the creations of these companies and use them for law enforcement purposes,\u201d Patel said.<\/p>\n

At a separate news conference Tuesday afternoon, Attorney General Todd Blanche was noncommittal on whether AI companies need an antitrust waiver to self-regulate in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether entities need an antitrust waiver is not something I can answer from the podium of the White House,\u201d he said. \u201cThere’s dozens of factors that go into that, and there’s an application process, and there’s a kind of a process that DOJ and others use to determine what side.<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cI can say that, to the extent that those companies are looking to regulate themselves or fix problems that they have, that should do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two Senate Republicans said Tuesday that providing antitrust exemptions to artificial intelligence companies to facilitate discussions on how to make AI safer should be taken off the table \u2014 as lawmakers discuss ways to respond to industry warnings about the need for guardrails on the rapidly evolving technology. \u201cTo watch AI CEOs saying, \u2018We’re about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}