Eve, here. We’d like to take the liberty of republishing a post by Gary Marcus, one of the few AI experts to pinpoint the shortcomings of technology, especially large-scale language models, early on. Marcus is calling on voters to call on their representatives in Congress to block the White House’s plan to ban state regulation of AI. Tell your legislators in no uncertain terms to heed your warning and oppose this “get out of jail free” card against powerful AI players that can and should be regulated like any other potentially dangerous consumer or business service. Please share this post with your friends and colleagues who are involved in or skeptical of AI.
Even before we get to the harm that can result from inaccurate garden variety information, there are already many examples of chatbots encouraging suicide and violence.
By Gary Marcus, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience, New York University. Originally published on his website
I write with a certain amount of tension.
Part I: Recent history
I warned here about a federal bill introduced by Congress intended to curtail states’ rights to regulate AI. Many other organizations spoke out as well.
At that point, there was a happy ending at the very end. At the last minute, the Legislature, led by Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn, almost unanimously decided not to enact such a monster.
Good for you. Suspending national regulation of AI was and remains a terrible idea, especially in a world where there is no coherent federal response to AI. Children in particular are extremely vulnerable to garbage such as:
As I mentioned today in X, the renewed call for federal AI standards instead of state standards only makes sense if there is a (sensible) federal standard, but Congress has not taken any significant steps to bring it to a vote.
Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt spoke eloquently about something similar yesterday (full link here), referring to a proposed last-minute effort to include a moratorium on state regulation in the National Defense Authorization Act.
Part II: Breaking News
But even in the final hours, the stakes are high. Unfortunately, The Information’s big scoop reveals that the White House is apparently gearing up to get closer to big tech companies and bypass Congress entirely.
Please call your Congressional officials as soon as possible. Don’t let the White House cut them off or force the states you live in to their knees. I urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to follow the link provided by Joe Gordon-Levitt at https://linktr.ee/StopTheAIBan so that states can protect their citizens from the many dangers of AI in the short and long term. There are regulations for airlines, there are regulations for cars, there are regulations for bakeries. An AI bot that tells kids to kill themselves won’t kill themselves.
That needs to change.
