Schumer says AI roadmap coming soon from Senate working group

The Senate’s bipartisan working group on artificial intelligence will release a roadmap “within a few weeks” that charts a path forward for congressional work on the technology following its series of forums late last year, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday. 

“Very soon our group is going to release a policy roadmap highlighting many of the findings and areas of consensus from these forums,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said at the AI Expo for National Competitiveness in Washington. 

The AI working group’s “insight forums” featured AI leaders from industry, academia and advocacy, and covered topics such as risks, transparency, privacy, workforce, and how the technology might impact certain sectors. 

Schumer underscored the importance of innovation in his remarks, saying it must be the “North Star.” He noted that there is agreement over the idea that actions they take should encourage innovation but also be balanced with “proper guardrails.” He also called the efforts “exceedingly ambitious.”

While legislators in both chambers have shown interest, Congress hasn’t yet advanced its own broad legislation to address the risks and potential of the technology. The Biden administration released its executive order on AI in October that spans both risks and the potential of AI, but many issues still need congressional action.

According to Schumer, the roadmap will “give the public, those in the community, those in the industry, an idea of what our broad framework and our broad thrusts will be.” After that, Senate committees will get to work, Schumer said, noting that some are farther along than others. 

Schumer said they are “not going to wait to have one huge comprehensive plan that touches on everything,” pointing instead to efforts like Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) work on AI and deepfakes in elections, which he said is “almost ready to go.” He added later that he hopes the Senate will start having legislation come out within a few weeks and through the fall.

“Some of them will come out sooner, some of them will come out later, but you will see different committees taking our roadmap and translating that, concretizing that into legislation,” Schumer said. 

He also said they’re trying to work in sync with the House, which launched its own bipartisan working group for AI earlier this year. “Hopefully some things can get done — not everything, maybe not most — but by the end of the year,” Schumer said.