As artificial intelligence races into nearly every corner of American life, a fierce debate is unfolding over how much the government should step in to control it. Should AI companies be held legally responsible when their products cause harm? And should protecting children from AI’s risks outweigh concerns about stifling innovation?
Daniel Castro, President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, and J.B. Branch, Director of Federal AI Governance and Technology Policy at Public Citizen, join Billy Hallowell on “The Dialogue” to debate these urgent questions, clashing over corporate liability, child safety safeguards, and whether Washington can regulate AI without falling behind China.
[HALLOWELL] Welcome to “The Dialogue” from The Washington Times. In this episode, we’re covering an important question: Should the U.S. government impose stricter regulations on artificial intelligence? I’m joined by Daniel Castro, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and J.B. Branch, director of federal AI governance and technology policy at Public Citizen.
The statement today is this: The government should impose stricter regulation on artificial intelligence.
[CASTRO] I’ll say I partially agree. I mean, I think there’s a lot of regulations that already apply to AI. What I’m concerned, though, is that we’re not moving fast enough in terms of adoption. And many of the proposals I’ve seen for putting heavier regulation on AI looks at the technology and treats it all the same. It treats AI being used in healthcare the same as AI being used to schedule a vacation for someone. And I think that’s the problem.
We don’t want to have too many regulations that hold back productive uses of the technology. We want targeted rules that address very specific harms and situations.
[HALLOWELL] J.B., same statement: The government should impose stricter regulation on artificial intelligence. Where do you stand?
[BRANCH] I definitely think we need to have stricter regulations on artificial intelligence. I mean, we’re basically seeing a bit of a replica of what happened in the early 2000s, where tech companies were basically saying we can regulate and police ourselves. We’re the experts. And what ended up resulting was roughly 20, 25 years of harms, myths and disinformation, harms to minors, addicted to designs.
Today, AI companies are largely recycling that same playbook. They’re rushing to market with their products without concerns for harms. And they’ve learned from the last sort of tech revolution that they can do that and maybe settle for pennies on the dollar for the harms that were caused. At Public Citizen, we think that America can lead AI just without Silicon Valley basically writing their own rules.
Click here to watch the full conversation.
