US Congress is “burdened” with over 100 AI-related bills

The US Congress is burdened by regulating the fast-growing AI sector, with a total of 120 bills floating around the Congress. The bills cover the vast areas of AI technology, its development, and deployment across sectors.

According to the MIT Technology Review , this is a reflection of the US Congress’s desperate attempts to keep up pace with the many developments coming from the AI industry. The bills also give an insight into what the lawmakers perceive to be dangerous or not, areas of focus and priority as well as the US’ broad vision on AI regulation.

US Congress has bills covering a cocktail of AI issues

Out of the over 100 bills currently with Congress, one of them is meant to improve knowledge of the technology and its use in public schools while the other seeks to push developers to any copyrighted material used when training their models.

At least three of the bills cover areas to do with mitigating AI robocalls. Earlier this year, residents of New Hampshire once woke up to voice calls urging them to snub the February primary election, and only wait for the November presidential polls. The robocall featured an AI generated voice of President Biden.

According to MIT, two of the bills are meant to address AI-related biological risks. There is also a bill seeking to prohibit AI from launching a nuke on its own.

These various bills, Heather Vaughan, director of communications for the US House of Representatives Committee on Science Space and Technology, says are a sign of the urgency and desperate need to keep pace with the fast-growing industry.

“There is a sense of urgency. There’s a commitment to addressing this issue, because it is developing so quickly and because it is so crucial to our economy.”

– Vaughan.

Overall, the topics of the bills are dominated by science, tech, and communication at 28%, followed by commerce at 22%, while updating government operation accounts for 18%, and national security at 9%.

There are other topics that don’t get much attention like labor and employment accounting for 2%, environmental protection, and civil rights, civil liberties, and minorities accounting for 1% each.

However, despite the many bills on their table, many of them will not make it into law but reflect the areas of priority for the lawmakers regarding AI regulation.

The Brennan Center for Justice created a tracker for these AI bills that are currently circulating in the various committees in Congress.

Passing a bill through US Congress is not easy

According to the MIT Technology Review, a bill should pass through a smaller body of Congress before it gets voted by the whole Congress and many fail at this stage, never to be mentioned again. This happens because not all bills get equal attention.

However, Congress has passed several legislations on AI, for instance in 2020 the National AI Initiative Act made it through and was part of the Defense Authorization Act, which provided support for public education and workforce training on AI.

The Senate Commerce Committee also pushed through five bills in July which focused on authorizing the US AI Safety Institute to create test beds and voluntary guidelines for AI models.

Others focused on broadening education on AI and criminalizing the publication of deepfake pornography. According to MIT Technology Review, the next step would be to have the bills on congressional calendar to be voted on or debated and amended.

Executive director of the Center for AI Safety Action Fund, Varun Krovi opines the progress with these bills is a positive development.

“We need to codify the US AI Safety Institute into law if you want to maintain our leadership on the global stage when it comes to standards development,” he said.

“And we need to make sure that we pass a bill that provides computing capacity required for startups, small businesses, and academia to pursue AI.”

– Krovi.

After the Senate’s lead, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology also passed nine more bills on Sept. 11, focusing on improving AI in schools.

Another insight worth mentioning from the bills is that two thirds of the bills are sponsored by Democrats. This, according to MIT Technology Review is not surprising as some House Republicans have claimed they want no AI regulations, arguing this might stifle innovation.