[Senate Hearing 118-154]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-154
OVERSIGHT OF A.I.: LEGISLATING
ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON PRIVACY,
TECHNOLOGY, AND THE LAW
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 12, 2023
__________
Serial No. J-118-30
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
www.judiciary.senate.gov
www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
53-879 WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chair
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina,
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island Ranking Member
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware JOHN CORNYN, Texas
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii TED CRUZ, Texas
CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
ALEX PADILLA, California TOM COTTON, Arkansas
JON OSSOFF, Georgia JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
PETER WELCH, Vermont THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
Joseph Zogby, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Katherine Nikas, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut, Chair
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri, Ranking
CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware Member
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
ALEX PADILLA, California MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
JON OSSOFF, Georgia MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
JOHN CORNYN, Texas
David Stoopler, Democratic Chief Counsel
John Ehrett, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Blumenthal, Hon. Richard......................................... 1
Hawley, Hon. Josh................................................ 3
WITNESSES
Dally, William................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 46
Responses to written questions............................... 54
Hartzog, Woodrow................................................. 7
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Responses to written questions............................... 70
Smith, Brad...................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 105
Responses to written questions............................... 115
APPENDIX
Items submitted for the record................................... 45
OVERSIGHT OF A.I.: LEGISLATING
ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
----------
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2023
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology,
and the Law,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice at 2:35 p.m., in
Room 226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard
Blumenthal, Chair of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Blumenthal [presiding], Klobuchar,
Hirono, Ossoff, Hawley, Kennedy, and Blackburn.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
Chair Blumenthal. The hearing of our Subcommittee on
Privacy, Technology, and the Law will come to order. I want to
welcome our witnesses, all of the audience who are here, and
say a particular thanks to Senator Schumer, who has been very
supportive and interested in what we're doing here. And also to
Chairman Durbin whose support has been invaluable in
encouraging us to go forward here.
I have been grateful, especially to my partner in this
effort, Senator Hawley, the Ranking Member. He and I, as you
know, have produced a framework, basically a blueprint for a
path forward to achieve legislation. Our interest is in
legislation, and this hearing along with the two previous ones,
have to be seen as a means to that end.
[Poster is displayed.]
Chair Blumenthal. We're very result oriented, as I know you
are, from your testimony. And I've been enormously encouraged
and emboldened by the response so far just in the past few
days, and from my conversations with leaders in the industry,
like Mr. Smith. There is a deep appetite, indeed a hunger for
rules and guardrails, basic safeguards for businesses and
consumers, for people in general, from the panoply of potential
perils. But there's also a desire to make use of the tremendous
potential benefits.
And our effort is to provide for regulation in the best
sense of the word. Regulation that permits and encourages
innovation, and new businesses, and technology and
entrepreneurship. But at the same time provides those
guardrails, enforceable safeguards, that can encourage trust
and confidence in this growing technology. It's not a new
technology entirely. It's been around for decades, but
artificial intelligence is regarded as entering a new era.
And make no mistake, there will be regulation. The only
question is, how soon and what? And it should be regulation
that encourages the best in American free enterprise, but at
the same time provides the kind of protections that we do in
other areas of our economic activity.
To my colleagues who say, ``There's no need for new rules,
we have enough laws protecting the public,'' yes, we have laws
that prohibit unfair and deceptive competition. We have laws
that regulate airline safety and drug safety. But nobody would
argue that simply because we have those rules, we don't need
specific protections for medical device safety or car safety.
Just because we have rules that prohibit discrimination in
the workplace doesn't mean that we don't need rules that
prohibit discrimination in voting. And we need to make sure
that these protections are framed and targeted in a way that
apply to the risks involved. Risk-based rules. Managing the
risks is what we need to do here.
So our principles are pretty straightforward, I think. We
have no pride of authorship. We have circulated this framework
to encourage comment. We won't be offended by criticism from
any quarter. That's the way we can make this framework better
and eventually achieve legislation we hope--I hope, at least,
by the end of this year.
And the framework is, basically: establishing a licensing
regime for companies that are engaged in high-risk AI
development; creating an independent oversight body that has
expertise with AI and works with other agencies to administer
and enforce the law; protecting our national and economic
security to make sure we aren't enabling China, or Russia, and
other adversaries to interfere in our democracy or violate
human rights; requiring transparency about the limits and use
of AI models.
And at this point, includes rules like watermarking,
digital disclosure when AI is being used, and data access for
researchers, and ensuring that AI companies can be held liable
when their products breach privacy, violate civil rights,
endanger the public, deepfakes, impersonation, hallucination.
We've all heard those terms. We need to prevent those harms.
And Senator Hawley and I, as former attorneys general of
our States, have a deep and abiding affection for the potential
enforcement powers of those officials--State officials. But the
point is, there must be effective enforcement. Private rights
of action as well as Federal enforcement are very, very
important.
So let me just close by saying--before I turn it over to my
colleague--we're going to have more hearings. The way to build
a coalition in support of these measures is to disseminate as
widely as possible the information that's needed for our
colleagues to understand what's at stake here.
We need to listen to the kinds of industry leaders and
experts that we have before us today, and we need to act with
dispatch more than just deliberate speed. We need to learn from
our experience with social media that if we let this horse get
out of the barn, it will be even more difficult to contain than
social media. And we are seeking to act on social media, the
harms that it portends right now as we speak.
We're literally at the cusp of a new era. I asked Sam
Altman, when he sat where you are, what his greatest fear was.
I said my nightmare is the massive unemployment that could be
created. That is an issue that we don't deal with directly
here, but it shows how wide the ramifications may be.
And we do need to deal with potential worker displacement
and training. And this new era is one that portends enormous
promise, but also perils. We need to deal with both. I'll turn
now to Ranking Member, Senator Hawley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOSH HAWLEY,
A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
organizing this hearing. This is now, as the Chairman said, the
third of these hearings that we've done. I've learned a lot in
the previous couple. I think, you know, some of what we're
learning about the potentials of AI is exhilarating. Some of it
is horrifying.
And I think what I hear the Chairman saying, and what I
certainly agree with, is we have a responsibility here now to
do our part to make sure that this new technology, which holds
a lot of promise but also peril, actually works for the
American people.
That it's good for working people. That it's good for
families. That we don't make the same mistakes that Congress
made with social media where, 30 years ago now, Congress
basically outsourced social media to the biggest corporations
in the world. And that has been, I would submit to you, nearly
an unmitigated disaster.
We've had the biggest, most powerful corporations, not just
in America, but on the globe, and in the history of the globe,
doing whatever they want with social media. Running experiments
basically every day on America's kids, inflicting mental health
harms the likes of which we've never seen, messing around in
our elections in a way that is deeply, deeply corrosive to our
way of life. We cannot make those mistakes again.
So we are here, as Senator Blumenthal said, to try to find
answers, and to try to make sure that this technology is
something that actually benefits the people of this country. I
have no doubt, with all due respect to the corporatists who are
in front of us, those heads of these corporations, I have no
doubt it's going to benefit your companies. What I want to make
sure is, is that actually benefits American people. And I think
that's the test that we're engaged in. I look forward to this
today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you. I want to introduce our
witnesses. And then, as is our custom, I will swear them in and
ask them to submit their testimony. Welcome, to all of you.
William Dally is NVIDIA's chief scientist. He joined NVIDIA
in January, 2009, as chief scientist after spending 12 years at
Stanford University where he was chairman of the computer
science department. He has published over 250 papers. He holds
120 issued patents, and he's the author of four textbooks.
Brad Smith is vice chair and president of Microsoft. As
Microsoft's vice chair and president, he is responsible for
spearheading the company's work and representing it publicly in
a wide variety of critical issues involving the intersection of
technology and society, including artificial intelligence,
cybersecurity, privacy, environmental sustainability, human
rights, digital safety, immigration, philanthropy, and products
and business for non-profit customers. And we appreciate your
being here.
Professor Woodrow Hartzog is professor of law, and Class of
1960 Scholar at Boston University School of Law. He's also a
non-resident fellow at the Cordell Institute for Policy in
Medicine & Law at Washington University, a faculty associate at
the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard
University, and an affiliate scholar at the Center for Internet
and Society at Stanford Law School.
I could go on about each of you at much greater length with
all your credentials, but suffice it to say, very impressive.
And if you'll now stand, I'll administer the oath.
[Witnesses are sworn in.]
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you. Why don't we begin with you,
Mr. Dally?
STATEMENT OF WILLIAM DALLY, CHIEF SCIENTIST AND SENIOR VICE
PRESIDENT OF RESEARCH, NVIDIA CORPORATION, SANTA CLARA,
CALIFORNIA
Mr. Dally. Chairman Blumenthal, Ranking Member Hawley,
esteemed Judiciary Committee Members, thank you for the
privilege to testify today. I'm NVIDIA's chief scientist and
head of research, and I'm delighted to discuss our artificial
intelligence journey and future.
NVIDIA's at the forefront of accelerated computing and
generative AI, technologies that have the potential to
transform industries, address global challenges, and profoundly
benefit society. Since our founding in 1993, we have been
committed to developing technology to empower people and
improve the quality of life worldwide.
Today, over 40,000 companies use NVIDIA platforms across
media and entertainment, scientific computing, healthcare,
financial services, internet services, automotive, and
manufacturing to solve the world's most difficult challenges,
and bring new products and services to consumers worldwide.
At our founding in 1993, we were a 3D graphic startup. One
of dozens of startups competing to create an entirely new
market for accelerators to enhance computer graphics for games.
In 1999, we invented the graphics processing unit, or GPU,
which can perform a massive number of calculations in parallel.
When we launched the GPU for AI in gaming, we recognized
that GPUs could theoretically accelerate any application that
could benefit from massively parallel processing. And this bet
paid off.
Today, researchers worldwide innovate on NVIDIA GPUs.
Through our collective efforts, we have made advances in AI
that will revolutionize and provide tremendous benefits to
society across sectors such as healthcare, medical research,
education, business, cybersecurity, climate, and beyond.
However, we also recognize that like any new product or
service, AI products and services have risks, and those who
make, and use, or sell AI-enabled products and services are
responsible for their conduct.
Fortunately, many uses of AI applications are subject to
existing laws and regulations that govern the sectors in which
they operate. AI-enabled services in high-risk sectors could be
subject to enhanced licensing and certification requirements
when necessary while other applications with less risk of harm
may need less stringent licensing and/or regulation. With
clear, stable, and thoughtful regulation, AI developers will
work to benefit society while making products and services as
safe as possible.
For our part, NVIDIA is committed to the safe and
trustworthy development and deployment of AI. For example, NeMo
Guardrails, our open-source software, empowers developers to
guide generative AI applications to produce accurate,
appropriate, and secure text responses. NVIDIA has implemented
model risk management guidance, ensuring a comprehensive
assessment and management of risks associated with NVIDIA-
developed models.
Today, NVIDIA announced it is endorsing the White House's
voluntary commitments on AI. As we deploy AI more broadly, we
can and will continue to identify and address risks.
No discussion of AI would be complete without addressing
what is often described as frontier AI models. Some have
expressed fear that frontier models will evolve into
uncontrollable artificial general intelligence which could
escape our control and cause harm.
Fortunately, uncontrollable artificial general intelligence
is science fiction, not reality. At its core, AI is a software
program that is limited by its training, the inputs provided to
it, and the nature of its output. In other words, humans will
always decide how much decision-making power to cede to AI
models.
So long as we are thoughtful and measured, we can ensure
safe, trustworthy, and ethical deployment of AI systems without
suppressing innovation. We can spur innovation by ensuring that
AI tools are widely available to everyone, not concentrated in
the hands of a few powerful firms.
I will close with two observations.
First, the AI genie is already out of the bottle. AI
algorithms are widely published and available to all. AI
software can be transmitted anywhere in the world at the press
of a button. And many AI development tools, frameworks, and
foundational models are open-sourced.
Second, no nation, and certainly no company, controls a
chokepoint to AI development. Leading U.S. computing platforms
are competing with companies from around the world. While U.S.
companies may currently be the most energy efficient, cost
efficient, and easiest to use, they're not the only viable
alternatives for developers abroad.
Other nations are developing AI systems, with or without
U.S. components, and they will offer those applications in the
worldwide market. Safe and trustworthy AI will require
multilateral and multi-stakeholder cooperation, or it will not
be effective.
The United States is in a remarkable position today, and
with your help, we can continue to lead on policy and
innovation well into the future.
NVIDIA stands ready to work with you to ensure that the
development and deployment of generative AI and accelerated
computing serve the best interest of all. Thank you for your
opportunity to testify before this Committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dally appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you, very much. Mr. Smith.
STATEMENT OF BRAD SMITH, VICE CHAIR AND PRESIDENT, MICROSOFT
CORPORATION, REDMOND, WASHINGTON
Mr. Smith. Chairman Blumenthal, Ranking Member Hawley,
Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Brad Smith. I'm the
vice chair and president of Microsoft. And thank you for the
opportunity to be here today. And I think more importantly,
thank you for the work that you have done to create the
framework you've shared.
Chairman Blumenthal, I think you put it very well.
First, we need to learn and act with dispatch. And Ranking
Member Hawley, I think you offered real words of wisdom. Let's
learn from the experience the whole world had with social
media, and let's be clear-eyed about the promise and the peril
in equal measure as we look to the future of AI.
I would first say, I think, your framework does that. It
doesn't attempt to answer every question by design. But it's a
very strong and positive step in the right direction, and puts
the U.S. Government on the path to be a global leader in
ensuring a balanced approach that will enable innovation to go
forward with the right legal guardrails in place.
As we all think about this more, I think it's worth keeping
three goals in mind.
First, let's prioritize safety and security, which your
framework does. Let's require licenses for advanced AI models
and uses in high-risk scenarios. Let's have an agency that is
independent, and can exercise real and effective oversight over
this category. And then, let's couple that with the right kinds
of controls that will ensure safety of the sort that we've
already seen, I think, start to emerge in the White House
commitments that were launched on July 21st.
Second, let's prioritize, as you do, the protection of our
citizens and consumers. Let's prioritize national security--
always in a sense, in some ways, the first priority of the
Federal Government. But let's think as well as you have about
protecting the privacy, the civil rights, and the needs of kids
among many other ways of working and ensure we get this right.
Let's take the approach that you are recommending. Namely,
focus not only on those companies that develop AI, like
Microsoft, as well as companies that deploy AI, like Microsoft.
In different categories, we're going to need different levels
of obligations.
And as we go forward, let's think about the connection
between, say, the role of a central agency that will be on
point for certain things, as well as the obligations that,
frankly, will be part of the work of many agencies and, indeed,
our courts as well.
And let's do one other thing, as well--maybe it's one of
the most important things we need to do so that we ensure that
the threats that many people worry about remain part of science
fiction and don't become a new reality. Let's keep AI under the
control of people. It needs to be safe. And to do that, as
we've encouraged, there need to be safety breaks, especially
for any AI application or system that controls critical
infrastructure.
If a company wants to use AI to, say, control the
electrical grid, or all of the self-driving cars on our roads,
or the water supply, we need to learn from so many other
technologies that do great things but also can go wrong. We
need a safety break. Just like we have a circuit breaker in
every building and home in this country to stop the flow of
electricity if that's needed.
Then I would say let's keep one third goal in mind, as
well. This is the one where I would suggest you maybe consider
doing a bit more to add to the framework. Let's remember the
promise that this offers. Right now if you go to State
capitals, you go to other countries, I think there's a lot of
energy being put on that.
When I see what Governor Newsom is doing in California, or
Governor Burgum in North Dakota, or Governor Youngkin in
Virginia, I see them at the forefront of figuring out how to
use AI to, say, improve the delivery of healthcare, advance
medicine, improve education for our kids, and, maybe most
importantly, make government services more accessible and more
efficient.
Let's see if we can find a way to not only make government
better by using this technology, but cheaper--or use the
savings to provide more and better services to our people. That
would be a good problem to have the opportunity to consider.
In sum, Professor Hartzog has said this is not a time for
half measures. It is not. He is right. Let's go forward as you
have recommended. Let's be ambitious and get this right. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you. Thank you, very much. And Mr.
Hartzog, I've read your testimony, and you are very much
against half measures. So we look forward to hearing what the
full measures that you recommend are.
Professor Hartzog. That's correct, Senator.
STATEMENT OF WOODROW HARTZOG, PROFESSOR OF LAW, BOSTON
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, AND FELLOW, CORDELL INSTITUTE FOR
POLICY IN MEDICINE & LAW, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS,
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Professor Hartzog. Chair Blumenthal, Ranking Member Hawley,
and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to
appear before you today.
My name is Woodrow Hartzog, and I'm a professor of law at
Boston University. My comments today are based on a decade of
researching law and technology issues, and I'm drawing from
research on artificial intelligence policy that I conducted as
a fellow with colleagues at the Cordell Institute at Washington
University in St. Louis.
Committee Members, up to this point, AI policy has largely
been made up of industry-led approaches, like encouraging
transparency, mitigating bias, and promoting principles of
ethics. I'd like to make one simple point in my testimony
today. These approaches are vital, but they are only half
measures. They will not fully protect us.
To bring AI within the rule of law, lawmakers must go
beyond these half measures to ensure that AI systems and the
actors that deploy them are worthy of our trust. Half measures
like audits, assessments, and certifications are necessary for
data governance, but industry leverages procedural checks like
these to dilute our laws and to managerial box-checking
exercises that entrench harmful surveillance-based business
models.
A checklist is no match for the staggering fortune
available to those who exploit our data, our labor, and our
precarity to develop and deploy AI systems. And it's no
substitute for meaningful liability when AI systems harm the
public.
Today I'd like to focus on three popular half measures, and
why lawmakers must do more.
First, transparency is a popular proposed solution for
opaque systems, but it does not produce accountability on its
own. Even if we truly understand the various parts of AI
systems, lawmakers must intervene when these tools are harmful
and abusive.
A second laudable, but insufficient approach is when
companies work to mitigate bias. AI systems are notoriously
biased along lines of race, class, gender, and ability. While
mitigating bias in AI systems is critical, self-regulatory
efforts to make AI fair are half measures doomed to fail. It's
easy to say that AI systems should not be biased. It's very
difficult to find consensus on what that means and how to get
there.
Additionally, it's a mistake to assume that if a system is
fair, then it's safe for all people. Even if we ensure that AI
systems work equally well for all communities, all we will have
done is create a more effective tool that the powerful can use
to dominate, manipulate, and discriminate.
A third AI half measure is committing to ethical
principles. Ethics are important, and these principles sound
impressive, but they are a poor substitute for laws. It's easy
to commit to ethics, but industry doesn't have the incentive to
leave money on the table for the good of society.
I have three recommendations for the Committee to move
beyond AI half measures.
First, lawmakers must accept that AI systems are not
neutral, and regulate how they are designed. People often argue
that lawmakers should avoid design rules for technologies
because there are no bad AI systems, only bad AI users.
This view of technologies is wrong. There is no such thing
as a neutral technology, including AI systems. Facial
recognition technologies empower the watcher. Generative AI
systems replace labor. Lawmakers should embrace established
theories of accountability like product liability's theory of
defective design, or consumer protection's theory of providing
the means and instrumentalities of unfair and deceptive
conduct.
My second recommendation is to focus on substantive laws
that limit abuses of power. AI systems are so complex and
powerful that it can seem like trying to regulate magic, but
the broader risks and benefits of AI systems are not so new. AI
systems bestow power. This power is used to benefit some and
harm others.
Lawmakers should borrow from established legal approaches
to remedying power imbalances, to require broad non-negotiable
duties of loyalty, care, and confidentiality, and implement
robust bright-line rules that limit harmful secondary uses and
disclosures of personal data in AI systems.
My final recommendation is to encourage lawmakers to resist
the idea that AI is inevitable. When lawmakers go straight to
putting up guardrails, they fail to ask questions about whether
particular AI systems should exist at all. This dooms us to
half measures. Strong rules would include prohibitions on
unacceptable AI practices like emotion recognition, biometric
surveillance in public spaces, predictive policing, and social
scoring.
In conclusion, to avoid the mistakes of the past, lawmakers
must make the hard calls. Trust and accountability can only
exist where the law provides meaningful protections for humans,
and AI half measures will certainly not be enough. Thank you,
and I welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of Professor Hartzog appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you, Professor Hartzog. And I take
very much to heart your imploring us against half measures. I
think listening to both Senator Hawley and myself, you have a
sense of boldness and initiative.
And we welcome all of the specific ideas, most especially
Mr. Smith, your suggestion that we can be more engaged and
proactive at the State level or Federal level in making use of
AI in the public sector.
But taking the thought that Professor Hartzog has so
importantly introduced, AI technology in general is not
neutral. How do we safeguard against the downsides of AI,
whether it's discrimination or surveillance? Will this
licensing regime and oversight entity be sufficient? And what
kind of powers do we need to give it?
Mr. Smith. Well, I would say, first of all, I think that a
licensing regime is indispensable in certain high-risk
scenarios, but it won't be sufficient to address every issue.
But it's a critical start. Because I think what it really
ensures is especially, say, for the frontier models, the most
advanced, as well as certain applications that are highest
risk, frankly, you do need a license from the Government before
you go forward.
And that is real accountability. You can't drive a car
until you get a license. You can't make the model or the
application available until you pass through that gate.
I do think that it would be a mistake to think that one
single agency or one single licensing regime would be the right
recipe to address everything, especially when we think about
the harms that we need to address.
And that's why I think it's equally critical that every
agency in the Government that is responsible for the
enforcement of the law and the protection of people's rights,
master the capability to assess AI. I don't think we want to
move the approval of every new drug from the FDA to this
agency. So by definition, the FDA is going to need, for
example, to have the capability to assess AI. That would be
just one of several additional specifics that I think one can
think about.
Chair Blumenthal. I think that's a really important point
because AI is going to be used in making automobiles, making
airplanes, making toys for kids. So the FAA, the FDA, the
Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Product Safety
Commission, they all have presently existing rules and
regulations, but there needs to be an oversight entity that
uses some of those rules and adapts them, and adopts new rules
so that those harms can be prevented.
And there are a lot of different names we could call that
entity. Connecticut now has an Office of Artificial
Intelligence. You could use different terms, but I think the
idea is that we want to make sure that the harms are prevented
through a licensing regime focused on risk.
Mr. Dally, you know, you said that autonomous AI is science
fiction. AI beyond human control is science fiction. But
science fiction has a way of coming true, and I wonder whether
that is a potential fear. Certainly, it is one that's widely
shared at the moment.
Whether it's fact-based or not, it is in the reality of
human perception. And, as you well know, trust and confidence
are very, very important. So I wonder how we counter the
perception and prevent the science fiction from becoming
reality?
Mr. Dally. So what I said is that artificial general
intelligence that gets out of control as science fiction, not
autonomous. We use artificial intelligence, for example,
autonomous vehicles all the time.
I think the way we make sure that we have control over AI
of all sorts is by, for any really critical application,
keeping a human in the loop. You know, AI is a computer
program. It takes an input, it produces an output. And if you
don't connect up something that can cause harm to that output,
it can't cause that harm. And so anytime that there is some
grievous harm that could happen, you want a human being between
the output of that AI model and the causing of harm.
And so I think as long as we're, you know, careful about
how we deploy AI to, you know, keep humans in the critical
loops, I think we can assure that the AIs, you know, won't take
over and shut down our power grid, or, you know, cause
airplanes to fall out of the sky. We can keep control over
them.
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you. I have a lot more questions,
but we're going to adhere to 5-minute rounds. We have a very
busy day, as you know, with votes, as a matter of fact. And
I'll turn to Senator Hawley.
Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks, again, to
the witnesses for being here. I want to particularly thank you,
Mr. Smith. I know that there's a group of other--your
colleagues, your counterparts in industry who are gathering, I
think, tomorrow. And that is what it is.
But I appreciate you being willing to be here in public and
answer questions in front of the presses here. And this is open
to anybody who wants to see it. And I think that's the way that
this ought to be done. I appreciate you being willing to do
that.
You mentioned protecting kids. I just want to start with
that, if I could. I want to ask you a little bit about what
Microsoft has done and is doing. Kids use your Bing chatbot. Is
that fair to say?
Mr. Smith. Yes. We have certain age controls, so we don't
let a child of any age. But yes, in general, it is possible for
children to register if they're of a certain age.
Senator Hawley. And the age is?
Mr. Smith. I'm trying to remember, as I sit here. I'll get
you----
Senator Hawley. I think it's 13.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. The answer.
Senator Hawley. Does that sound right?
Mr. Smith. It would----
Senator Hawley. Maybe Senator----
Mr. Smith. I was going to say 12 or 13.
Senator Hawley. Okay.
Mr. Smith. I'll take it, at 13.
Senator Hawley. Do you have some sort of age verification?
I mean, how do we know what age--I mean, obviously, the kid can
put in whatever age he or she wants to. Is there some form of
age verification for Bing?
Mr. Smith. We do have age verification systems that then
involve, typically, getting permission from a parent. And we
use this across our services, including for gaming. I don't
remember off the top of my head exactly how it works, but I'd
be happy to get you the details.
Senator Hawley. Great. My impression is that Bing Chat
doesn't really have an enforceable age verification. I mean,
there's no way really to know, but again, you correct me if
that's wrong.
Let me ask you this, what happens to all of the information
that our hypothetical 13-year-old is putting into the tool as
it's having this chat? You know, I mean, they could be chatting
about anything and going back and forth on any number of
subjects. What happens to that info that the kid puts in?
Mr. Smith. Well, the most important thing I would say,
first, is that it all is done in a manner that protects the
privacy of children. This is----
Senator Hawley. And how is that?
Mr. Smith. Well, we follow the rules in COPPA, which is,
you know, exists to protect child online privacy. And it
forbids using it for tracking. It forbids its use for
advertising or for other things. It seeks to put very tight
controls around the use and the retention of that information.
The second thing I would just add to that is in addition to
protecting privacy, we are hyper-focused on ensuring that, in
most cases, people of any age, but especially children, are not
able to use something like Bing Chat in ways that would cause
harm to themselves or to others.
Senator Hawley. And how do you do that?
Mr. Smith. We basically have a safety architecture that we
use across the board. Think about it like this, there's two
things around a model.
The first is called a classifier so that if somebody asks,
``How can I commit suicide tonight?'' ``How can I blow up my
school tomorrow?'' that hits a classifier that identifies a
class of questions, or prompts, or issues.
And then second, there's what we call Meta-Prompts and that
we intervene so that the question is not answered. If someone
asks how to commit suicide, we typically would provide a
response that encourages someone to get mental health
assistance and counseling, and tells them how. If somebody
wants to know how to build a bomb, it says, no, you cannot use
this to do that.
And that fundamental safety architecture is going to
evolve, it's going to get better. But in a sense, it's at the
heart, if you will, of both what we do and, I think, the best
practices in the industry. And I think part of what this is all
about, that we're talking about here, is how we take that
architectural element and continue to strengthen it.
Senator Hawley. Very good. That's helpful. Let me ask you
about the information--back to the kids' information for a
second. Is it stored in the United States? Is it stored
overseas?
Mr. Smith. If the child is in the United States, the data
is stored in the United States. It's true not only for
children, it's for adults as well.
Senator Hawley. And who has access to that data?
Mr. Smith. The child has access if--you know, the parents
may or may not have access. Typically, we give----
Senator Hawley. In what circumstances would the parents
have access?
Mr. Smith. I would have to go get you the specifics on
that. Our general principle is this--and this is something
we've implemented in the United States even though it's not
legally required in the United States. It is legally required,
as you may know, in Europe--people, we think, have a right to
find out what information we have about them. They have the
right to see it. They have the right to ask us to correct it,
if it's wrong. They have the right to ask us to delete it, if
that's what they want us to do.
Senator Hawley. And you do that? If they ask you to delete
it, you delete it?
Mr. Smith. We'd better. Yes. That's our promise. And we do
a lot to comply with that.
Senator Hawley. Let me just ask about--and I have a lot
more questions--I'm going to try to adhere to the timeline, Mr.
Chairman. Five minutes, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Blumenthal. We'll have a second round.
Senator Hawley. All right. That's great news for us. Not
such great news for the witnesses.
[Laughter.]
Senator Hawley. Sorry. Right.
Let me just--before I leave this subject, last thing, just
about the kids' personal data and where it's stored. I'm asking
you this, as I'm sure you can intuit, because we've seen other
technology companies in the social media space who have major
issues about where data is stored and major access issues.
And I'm thinking of it, it shouldn't be hard to guess, I'm
thinking, in particular, of China, where we've seen other
social media companies who say, ``Oh, well, America's data is
stored in America.''
But guess what? Lots of people in other countries can
access that data.
So is that true for you, Mr. Smith? Is a child's data that
they've entered into the Bing Chat that's stored in the United
States--you just said, if they're an American citizen--can that
be accessed in, let's say, China, by a Microsoft China-based
engineer?
Mr. Smith. I don't believe so. I'd love to go back and
just, you know, confirm that. But I don't believe----
Senator Hawley. Would you? Would you be able to get that
for me for the record?
Mr. Smith. Sure.
Senator Hawley. Thank you. Okay. I'll have lots of more
questions later. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Hawley. Senator
Klobuchar.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you, very much. Thank you, all of
you. I think I will lead with some elections questions, since
I'm the Chair of the Rules Committee.
Mr. Smith, in your written testimony you talked about how
watermarks could be helpful disclosure of AI material.
As you know, and we have talked about, I have a bill that I
lead--that Representative Clark leads in the House--to require
disclaimer and some kind of mark on AI-generated ads. I think
we have to go further. We'll get to that in a minute, Professor
Hartzog.
But could you talk about what you mean by in your written
testimony, ``the health of democracy and meaningful civic
discourse will undoubtedly benefit from initiatives that help
protect the public against deception or fraud facilitated by
AI-generated content'' ?
Mr. Smith. Absolutely. And here I do think things are
moving quickly, both in a positive and a worrisome direction,
in terms of what we're seeing. On the positive side, I think
you're seeing the industry come together. You're seeing a
company like Adobe, I think, exercise real leadership, and
there's a recipe that I see emerging.
I think it starts with the first principle: People should
have the right to know if they're getting a phone call from a
computer, from AI, if there's content coming from an AI system
rather than a human being.
We then need to make that real with legal rights that back
it up. We need to create what's called a provenance system,
watermarking for legitimate content so that it can't be altered
easily without our detection to create a deepfake.
We need to create an effort that brings the industry and, I
think, governments together so we know what to do and there's a
consensus when we do spot deepfakes, especially, say, even
deepfakes that have altered legitimate content.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. So that would----
Senator Klobuchar. And let's get to that----
Mr. Smith [continuing]. Be the first one.
Senator Klobuchar [continuing]. Hot off the press.
Senator Hawley and I have introduced our bill today with
Senator Collins and--who led the Electoral Reform Act, as we
know, and Senator Coons--to ban the use of deceptive AI-
generated content in elections.
So this would work in concert with some watermark system,
but when you get into the deception where it is fraudulent--AI-
generated content pretending to be the elected official or the
candidate when it is not, and we've seen this used against
people on both sides of the aisle--which is why it was so
important that we be bipartisan in this work. And I want to
thank him for his leadership on not only of the framework, but
also on the work that we're doing.
And I guess I'll go to you, Senator Hartzog--Mr. Hartzog--I
just promoted you.
[Laughter.]
Senator Klobuchar. Maybe, I mean, it's very debatable.
[Laughter.]
Senator Klobuchar. Could you--in your testimony, you
advocate for some outright prohibitions, which we're talking
about here. Now, we do have, of course, a constitutional
exception for satire and humor because we love satire so much--
the Senators do. Just kidding.
[Laughter.]
Senator Klobuchar. Could you talk about why you believe
there has to be some out-wide ban of misleading AI conduct
related to Federal candidates and political ads? Talk about
that.
Professor Hartzog. Sure. Absolutely. Thank you for the
question. I--of course, keeping in mind free expression
constitutional protections that would apply to any sort of
legislation, I do think that bright-line rules and prohibitions
around such deceptive ads are critical.
Because we know that procedural walkthroughs, as I said in
my testimony, are often--give the veneer of protection without
actually protecting us. And so to outright prohibit these
practices, I think, is really important.
And I would even go potentially a step further and think
about ways in which we can prohibit not just those that we
would consider to be deceptive, but practices that we'd
consider even abusive that leverage our internal limitations
and our desire to believe, or want to believe, things against
us. And there's a body of law that sort of runs alongside
unfair and deceptive trade practices around abusive trade
practices.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. All right. Mr. Dally, thinking of
that--and I've talked to Mr. Smith about this, as well, AI used
as a scam--I had someone actually that I know well who has a
kid in the Marines who's deployed somewhere where they don't
even know where it is. Fake voice calls them, asks for money to
be sent somewhere in Texas, I believe.
Could you talk about what companies do--and I appreciate
the work you've done to ensure that AI platforms are designed
so they can't be used for criminal purposes because that's got
to be part of the work that we do.
Mr. Dally. Yes----
Senator Klobuchar. Because it's not just scams against
elected officials.
Mr. Dally. Yes. Well, I think the best measures against
deepfakes, and Mr. Smith mentioned it in his testimony, is the
use of provenance and authentication systems where you can have
authentic images, authentic voice recordings signed by the
device, whether it's a camera or an audio recorder, that has
recorded that voice.
And then when it's presented, it can be authenticated as
being genuine and not a deepfake. That's sort of the flip side
of watermarks, which would require that anything that is
synthetically generated be identified as such.
And those two technologies in combination can really help
people sort out, along with a certain amount of public
education, and make sure people understand, you know, what the
technology is, you know, capable of and are on guard for that.
But it can help them sort out what is real from what is fake.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. I'll ask Mr. Smith back where I
started here. Some AI platforms use local news content without
compensating journalists and papers, including by using their
content to train AI algorithms.
The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, a bill I
have with Senator Kennedy, would allow local news organizations
to negotiate with online platforms, including generative AI
platforms, that use their content without compensation.
Could you talk about the impacts that AI could have on
local journalism? You talked about, in your testimony, about
the importance of investment and quality journalism. But where
we're getting at, we've got to find a way that we make sure
that the people who are actually doing the work are compensated
in many ways, but also in journalism. Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. I would just say three quick things.
Number one, look, we need to recognize that local
journalism is fundamental to the health of the country and the
electoral system. And it's ailing. So we need to find ways to
preserve and promote it.
Number two, generally, I think we should let local
journalists and publications, you know, make decisions about
whether they want their content to be available for training,
or grounding, and the like. And that's a big topic, and it's
worthy of more discussion. And we should certainly let them, in
my view, negotiate collectively, because that's the only way
local journalism is really going to negotiate effectively.
Senator Klobuchar. I appreciate your words. You want to add
one thing--I'm going to get in trouble from Senator Blumenthal
here. Go ahead.
Chair Blumenthal. That's alright.
Mr. Smith. No, but then I will just say, and there are ways
that we can use AI to help local journalists. And we're
interested in that, too. So let's add that to the list.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Very good. And thank you, again,
both of you. I talked about Senator Hawley's work, but you,
Senator Blumenthal, for your leadership.
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you, very much. Thank you for
yours, Senator Klobuchar. Senator Hirono.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Smith, it's
good to see you, again. So every time we have one of these
hearings, we learn something new. But the conclusion I've drawn
is that AI is ubiquitous. Anybody can use AI. It can be used in
any endeavor. So when I hear you folks testifying about how we
shouldn't be taking half measures, I'm not sure what that
means.
What does it mean not taking half measure on something as
ubiquitous as AI, where there are other regulatory schemes that
can touch upon those endeavors that use AI? So, you know,
there's always a question I have of when we address something
as complex as how AI is looking, that there are unintended
consequences that we should care about. Would you agree?
Anybody? Mr. Smith?
Mr. Smith. I would absolutely agree. I think we have to
define what's a full measure and what's a half measure. But I
bet we can all agree that half measures are not good enough.
Senator Hirono. Well, that is the thing. How to recognize,
you know, going forward, what is actually going to help us with
this powerful tool. So I have a question for you, Mr. Smith. It
is a powerful tool that can be used for either good, or it can
also be used to spread a lot of disinformation and
misinformation.
And that happened during the disaster on Maui. And Maui
residents were subject to disinformation, some of it coming
from foreign governments, i.e., Russia, looking to sow
confusion and distress, including, ``Don't sign up for FEMA
because they cannot be trusted.'' And I worry that with AI,
such information will only become more rampant with future
disasters.
Do you share my concern about misinformation in the
disaster context in the role AI could play? And what can we do
to prevent these foreign entities from pushing out AI
disinformation to people who are very vulnerable?
Mr. Smith. I absolutely share your concern, and I think
there's two things we need to think about doing.
First, let's use the power of AI, as we are, to detect
these kinds of activities when they're taking place because
they can enable us to go faster--as they did in that instance
where Microsoft, among others, used AI and other data
technologies to identify what people were doing.
Number two, I just think we need to stand up as a country,
and with other governments, and with the public, and sayc,
there need to be some clear red lines in the world today
regardless of how much else or what else we disagree about.
When you think about what happens, typically, in the wake
of an earthquake, or a hurricane, or a tsunami----
Senator Hirono. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. Or a flood, the world comes
together. People are generous, they help provide relief.
And then, let's look at what happened after the fire in
Maui. It was the opposite of that. We had some people, not
necessarily directed by the Kremlin, but people who regularly
spread Russian propaganda, trying to discourage the people of
Lahaina from going to the agencies that could help them. That's
inexcusable.
And we saw what we believe is Chinese-directed activity
trying to persuade the world, in multiple languages, that the
fire was caused----
Senator Hirono. Mm-hmm.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. By the United States Government
itself using a meteorological weapon.
Those are the things that we should all try to bring the
international community together and agree they're off limits.
Senator Hirono. Well, how do we identify that this is even
occurring? That there is a, you know, a China- or Russia-
directed misinformation going on? How do we--I didn't know this
was happening, by the way.
And even in the Energy Committee, on which I sit, we had
people testify and I asked, you know, regarding the Maui
disaster. I asked one of the testifiers whether he was aware
that there had been disinformation put out by a foreign
government in that example. And he said yes.
But I don't know that the people of Maui recognized that
that was going on.
So how do we, one, even identify that that's going on and
then, two, to come forward and say this is happening and to
name names--identify that, which country it is that it's
spreading this kind of disinformation and misinformation?
Mr. Smith. I think we have to think about two things.
First, I think we at a company like Microsoft have to lean
in, and we are--with data, with infrastructure, with experts,
and real-time capability to spot these threats, find the
patterns, and reach well-founded conclusions.
And then the second thing, this is the harder thing. This
is where it's going to need all of your help. What do we do if
we find that a foreign government is deliberately trying to
spread false information next year in a Senate or Presidential
campaign about a candidate? How do we create the room so that
information can be shared and people will consider it?
Senator Hirono. Yes.
Mr. Smith. You all, with this--the most important word in
your framework is bipartisan. How do we create the bipartisan
framework so that when we find this, we create a climate where
people can listen? I think we have to look at both of those
parts of the problem together.
Senator Hirono. Well, I hope we can do that. And Mr.
Chairman, if you don't mind, one of the concerns about AI from
the worker standpoint is that their jobs will be gone.
And Professor Hartzog, you mentioned that the--that
generative AI can result in job losses. And for both you and
Mr. Smith, what are the kinds of jobs that will be lost to AI?
Professor Hartzog. That's an excellent question. It's
difficult to project that into the future. But I would start
with saying that not necessarily something that can be
automated effectively, but things that--I think that those that
control the purse strings think could be automated effectively.
And if it gets to the point where it appears as though it
could, I imagine you'll see industry move in that direction.
Senator Hirono. Mr. Smith, I think you mentioned in your
book, which I am listening to, that things like ordering
something out of a drive-through, that those jobs could be gone
through AI.
Mr. Smith. Yes. It was 4 years ago, we published our book--
with my co-author, behind me--and we said, ``What's the first
job that we think might be eliminated by AI? '' We don't have a
crystal ball, but I bet it's taking an order in the drive-
through of a fast food restaurant.
You're not really establishing a rapport with a human
being. All the person does is listen and type into a computer
what you're saying. So when AI can hear as well as a person, it
can enter that in. And indeed, I was struck a few months ago,
Wendy's, I think it was, announced that they were starting to
consider whether they would automate with AI, the drive-
through.
I think there's a lesson, though, in that. And it should
give us both pause, but I think a little bit of optimism.
There's no creativity involved in a drive-through, at least,
listening and entering an order. There are so many jobs that do
involve creativity.
So the real hope, I think, is to use AI to automate the
routine, maybe even the work that's boring, to free people up
so they can be more creative, so they can focus more on paying
attention to other people and helping them. And if we just
apply that recipe more broadly, I think we might put ourselves
on a path that's more promising.
Senator Hirono. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you, Senator Hirono. Senator
Kennedy.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
calling this hearing. Mr. Dally--am I saying your name
correctly, sir?
Mr. Dally. That's correct.
Senator Kennedy. Yes. Mr. Dally, if I am a recipient of
content created by generative AI, do you think I should have a
right to know that that content was generated by a robot?
Mr. Dally. Yes, I think you do. I think the details would
depend on the context, but in most cases, I think, you know----
Senator Kennedy. Okay.
Mr. Dally [continuing]. I or anybody else, if I received
something, I'd like to know, is this real or was this
generated?
Senator Kennedy. Mr. Smith?
Mr. Smith. Generally, yes. What I would say is, if you're
listening to an audio, if you're watching a video, if you're
seeing an image and it was generated by AI, I think people have
a right to know.
The one area where I think there's a nuance is if you're
using AI to, say, help you write something. Maybe it's helping
you write the first draft. Just as I don't think any of us
would say that when our staff helps us write something, we are
obliged to give the speech and say, ``Now I'm going to read the
paragraph that my staff wrote.'' You make it your own.
And I think the written word is a little more complex. So
we need to think that through. But as a broad principle, I
agree with that principle.
Senator Kennedy. Professor?
Professor Hartzog. There are situations where you probably
wouldn't expect to be dealing with the product of generative
AI. And in those instances----
Senator Kennedy. Well, that's the problem.
Professor Hartzog. Right. But as times change, it's
possible that our expectations change. And so----
Senator Kennedy. But as a principle, do you think that
people should have a right to know when they're being fed
content from generative AI?
Professor Hartzog. If they were--if they--well, it's--I
tell my students it depends on the context. Generally speaking,
if you're vulnerable to generative AI, then the answer is
absolutely yes.
Senator Kennedy. What do you mean, ``if you're vulnerable''
?
Professor Hartzog. So there may be----
Senator Kennedy. I'm just looking for----
Professor Hartzog. Sure. Sure.
Senator Kennedy [continuing]. No disrespect----
Professor Hartzog. No. Not at all.
Senator Kennedy [continuing]. A straight answer.
Professor Hartzog. Absolutely.
Senator Kennedy. I kind of like--I like two things.
Breakfast food and straight answers.
Professor Hartzog. I love them.
[Laughter.]
Senator Kennedy. And if a robot is feeding me information,
and I don't know it's a robot, am I entitled to know it's a
robot as a consumer? Pretty straight up.
Professor Hartzog. Yes. I think the answer's yes. In----
Senator Kennedy. All right.
Professor Hartzog [continuing]. A lot of context.
Senator Kennedy. Let's start back from Mr. Dally. Am I
entitled to know who owns that robot and where that content
came from? I know it came from a robot, but somebody had to
goose the robot to make it give me that content. Am I entitled
as a consumer to know who owns the robot?
Mr. Dally. I think that's a harder question that depends on
the particular context. I think, you know, if somebody is
feeding me a video and it's been identified as being generated
by AI, I now know that it's generated, it's not real. You know,
if it's, you know, being used, for example, in a political
campaign, then----
Senator Kennedy. But, but----
Mr. Dally [continuing]. I would want to know who----
Senator Kennedy [continuing]. But let me stop you.
Mr. Dally [continuing]. Informed it. Yes.
Senator Kennedy. Let's suppose I'm looking at a video and
it was generated by a robot. Would it make any difference to
you whether that robot was owned by, let's say, President Biden
or President Trump? Don't you want to know in evaluating the
content who owns the robot and who prompted it to give you this
information?
Mr. Dally. I would probably want to know that. I don't know
that I would feel it would be required for me to know that.
Senator Kennedy. How about you, Mr. Smith?
Mr. Smith. I'm generally a believer in letting people know
not only that it's generated by a computer, but who owns the--
--
Senator Kennedy. Yes.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. Program that's doing it. The only
qualification I would offer, and it's something you all should
think about and would know better than me, there are certain
areas in political speech where one has to decide whether you
want people to act with anonymity. The Federalist Papers were
first published under a pseudonym. And I think in the world
today, I'd rather have everybody know who's speaking----
Senator Kennedy. Okay.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. think about it.
Senator Kennedy. Professor?
Professor Hartzog. I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you
again, Senator----
Senator Kennedy. Okay.
Professor Hartzog [continuing]. With a not-straight answer.
But I agree----
Senator Kennedy. How do you feel about breakfast food?
[Laughter.]
Professor Hartzog. Right. I am pro-breakfast food.
Senator Kennedy. Okay.
Professor Hartzog. So we agree on that. I agree with Mr.
Smith. I think that there are circumstances where you'd want to
preserve anonymous speech, and there are some where you
absolutely would want to know who did it.
Senator Kennedy. Okay. Well, I'm not--I don't want to go
too over. Obviously, this is an important subject, and the
extent to which I think--let me rephrase that. The extent of
most Senators' knowledge in terms of the nuances of AI, their
general impression is that AI has extraordinary potential to
make our lives better if it doesn't make our lives worse first.
And that's about the extent of it.
And in my judgment, we're not nearly ready to be able to
craft a bill that looks like somebody designed it on purpose. I
think we're more likely to take baby steps.
And I ask you those questions, predictably, because Senator
Schatz and I have a bill. It's very simple. It says if you own
a robot that's going to spit out artificial content to
consumers, consumers have the right to know that it was
generated by a robot and who owns the robot. And I think that's
a good place to start.
But again, I want to thank my colleagues here, my Chair and
my Ranking Member. They know a lot about this subject, and I
want to hear their questions, too. Thank you, all, for coming.
Senator Hawley [presiding]. Thank you, Senator Kennedy. On
behalf of the Chairman, we're going to start a second round.
And I guess I'll go first since I'm the only one sitting here.
It's bad news for the--bad news for the witnesses.
Senator Kennedy. Well, I came just to hear you.
Senator Hawley. Oh, I'm sure.
Senator Kennedy. I mean it.
Senator Hawley. Yes, yes.
Let me just--Mr. Smith, let me come back to this. We were
talking about kids, and kids' privacy and safety. Thanks for
the information you're going to get me. Let me give you an
opportunity, though, to maybe make a little news today in the
best possible way.
Thirteen, the age limit for Bing's Chat. That's such a
young age. I mean, listen, I've got three kids at home; 10, 8,
2 are my kids. I can't--I don't want my kids to be interacting
in the chatbots anytime soon at all. But 13 is so incredibly
young.
Would you commit today to raising that age? And would you
commit to a verifiable age verification procedure such that
parents can know, they can have some sense of confidence that
their 12-year-old is not just saying to Bing, ``Yes, yes, yes,
I'm 13. Yes, I'm 15. Sure. Go right on ahead. `Now let's get
into it back and forth with this robot' ''--as Senator Kennedy
said. Would you commit to those things on behalf of child
safety today?
Mr. Smith. Look, as you can imagine, the teams that work at
Microsoft let me go out and speak, but they probably have one
principle they want me to remember: Don't go out and make news
without talking to them first.
Senator Hawley. But you're the boss.
Mr. Smith. Yes. Let's just say wisdom is important. And
most mistakes you make, you make when you make them by
yourself. I'm happy to go back and talk more about what the
right age should be. That's----
Senator Hawley. Don't you think 13 is awfully low, though?
Mr. Smith. It depends for what, actually.
Senator Hawley. To interact with a robot----
Mr. Smith. No.
Senator Hawley [continuing]. Who could be telling you to do
any number of things. Don't you think that's awfully young?
Mr. Smith. Not necessarily. Let me describe----
Senator Hawley. Really?
Mr. Smith. It is the scenario. When I was in Seoul, Korea,
a couple of months ago, we met with the deputy prime minister,
who's also the minister of education. And they're trying to
create for three topics that are very objective: math, coding,
and learning English--a digital textbook with an AI tutor. So
that if you're doing math and you don't understand a concept,
you can ask the AI tutor to help you solve the problem.
And by the way, I think it's useful not only for the kids,
I think it's useful for the parents. And I think it's good.
Let's just say a 14-year-old, let's say--what's the age of
eighth grade algebra? You know, most parents say--I found when
my kids were in eighth grade algebra, I tried to help them with
their homework, they didn't believe I ever made it through the
class. I think we want kids, in a controlled way with
safeguards, to use something that way.
Senator Hawley. But we're not talking here about tutors.
Well, I'm talking about your AI chat, Bing Chat. I mean,
famously, earlier this year, your chatbot--you had a technology
writer for The New York Times who wrote about this. I'm looking
at the article right now. Your chatbot was urging this person
to break up his marriage.
Mr. Smith. I'm not sure----
Senator Hawley. Do we want 13-year-olds to be having those
conversations?
Mr. Smith. No, of course not.
Senator Hawley. Okay.
Mr. Smith. Which is why----
Senator Hawley. Well, will you commit to raising the age?
Mr. Smith. I actually don't want Bing Chat to break up
anybody's marriage.
Senator Hawley. I don't either.
Mr. Smith. So--but, but, but that----
Senator Kennedy. There might be some exceptions.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Smith. Yes. But we're not going to make the decision on
the exception. The--no, but it goes to--this is--we have
multiple tools. Age is a very red line.
Senator Hawley. It is a very red line----
Mr. Smith. And there's----
Senator Hawley [continuing]. That's why I like it.
Mr. Smith. And my point is, there is a safety architecture
that we can apply to bring----
Senator Hawley. But your safety architecture didn't stop an
adult. Didn't stop the chatbot from having this discussion with
an adult in which it said, ``You don't really love your wife.
You want to--your wife isn't good for you. She doesn't really
love you.''
Now, can you im--this is an adult. Can you imagine the kind
of things that your chatbot would say to a 13-year-old? I mean,
I'm serious about this. Do you really think this is a good
idea?
Mr. Smith. Yes. But look, wait a second. Let's put that in
context. At a point where the technology had been rolled out
for only 20,000 people, a journalist for The New York Times
spent 2 hours on the evening of Valentine's Day, ignoring his
wife, and interacting with a computer, trying to break the
system, which he managed to do. We didn't envision that use.
And then----
Senator Hawley. Have you----
Mr. Smith [continuing]. The next day we had fixed it----
Senator Hawley [continuing]. Have you--but----
Mr. Smith [continuing]. That's the key thing.
Senator Hawley. Are you telling me that you've envisioned
all the questions that 13-year-olds might ask, and that I, as a
parent, should be--should be absolutely fine with that? Are you
telling me that I should trust you in the same way that The New
York Times writer did?
Mr. Smith. What I am saying is, I think as we go forward,
we have an increasing capability to learn from the experience
of real people and----
Senator Hawley. Yes, see, that's what----
Mr. Smith [continuing]. What the right----
Senator Hawley [continuing]. Worries me. That's exactly
what worries me. Is what you're saying is we have to have some
failures. I don't want 13-year-olds to be your guinea pig. I
don't want 14-year-olds to be your guinea pig. I don't want any
kids to be your guinea pig. I don't want you to learn from
their failures.
You want to learn from the failures of your scientists, go
right ahead. Let's not learn from the failures of America's
kids. This is what happened with social media. We had social
media who made billions of dollars giving us a mental health
crisis in this country. They got rich, the kids got depressed,
committed suicide. Why would we want to run that experiment
again with AI? Why not raise the age? You could do it.
Mr. Smith. We shouldn't want--first of all, we shouldn't
want anybody to be a guinea pig. I think that, regardless of
age or anything else----
Senator Hawley. Good. Well, let's roll kids out right here.
Right today, right now.
Mr. Smith. No. But let's also recognize that technology
does require real users. What's different about this technology
and, which is so fundamentally different, in my view, from the
social media experience, is that we not only have the capacity,
but we have the will. And we are applying that will to fix
things in hours and days.
Senator Hawley. Well--yes, to fix things after there's
been--after the fact. I mean, I'm sorry. It just sounds to me
like you're boiling down and you're saying, ``Trust us. We're
going to do well with this.'' I'm just asking you why we should
trust you with our children.
Mr. Smith. I'm not asking for trust. Although, I hope we
will work every day to earn it. That's why you have a licensing
obligation.
Senator Hawley. There isn't a licensing obligation----
Mr. Smith. That's why----
Senator Hawley [continuing]. Right now.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. In your framework, in my view----
Senator Hawley. Well, sure. But I'm asking you as the
president of this company to make a commitment now for child
safety and protection to say, ``You know what? Microsoft is
going to''--you can tell every parent in America now:
``Microsoft is going to protect your kids. We will never use
your kids as a science experiment ever. Never. And therefore,
we're not going to allow your--we're not going to target your
kids, and we're not going to allow your kids to be used by our
chatbots as a source of information if they're younger than
18.''
Mr. Smith. But I think you're talking about--with all due
respect, there's two things that you're talking about. And I
think we're----
Senator Hawley. I'm just talking about protecting kids.
This is very simple. Yes.
Mr. Smith. Yes. No, but we don't want to use kids as a
source of information and monetizing, etc. But I am equally of
the view, I don't want to cut off an eighth grader today with
the right or ability to use this tool that will help them learn
algebra or math in a way that they couldn't a year ago.
Senator Hawley. Yes. Well [holds up document], with all due
respect, it wasn't algebra or math that your chatbot was
recommending or talking about when it was trying to break up
some reporter's marriage.
Mr. Smith. Of course not. But now we're mixing things and--
--
Senator Hawley. No, we're not. We're talking about your
chatbot. We're talking about Bing Chat.
Mr. Smith. Of course we're talking about Bing Chat. And I'm
talking about the protection of children, and how we make
technology better. And yes, there was that episode back in
February on Valentine's Day. Six months later, if that
journalist tries to do the same thing again, it will not
happen.
Senator Hawley. You want me to be done, Senator Klobuchar?
[Laughter.]
Senator Klobuchar. I just don't want to miss my vote.
Mr. Smith. There's other--there's other witnesses.
Senator Klobuchar. I don't want to miss my vote.
Senator Hawley. Senator Klobuchar.
Senator Klobuchar. Oh, you are very kind. Thank you. Some
of us haven't voted yet.
So I wanted to turn to you, Mr. Dally. In March, NVIDIA
announced a partnership with Getty Images to develop models
that generate new images using Getty's image library.
Importantly, this partnership provides royalties to content
creators. Why was it important to the company to partner with
and pay for these--of Getty's image library--developing
generative AI models?
Mr. Dally. Well, NVIDIA, we believe in respecting people's
intellectual property rights and the--you know, the rights of
the, you know, photographers who produce the images that our
model is trained on and are expecting income from those images
we didn't want to infringe on.
So, you know, we did not just scrape a bunch of images off
the web to train our model. We partnered with Getty, and we
trained our model Picasso. And when people use Picasso to
generate images, the people who provided the original, you
know, content get remunerated. And we see this as a way of
going forward in general, where people who are providing the IP
that trains these models should benefit from the use of that
IP.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. And today, the White House
announced eight more companies that are committing to take
steps to move toward safe, secure, and transparent development
of AI and videos. NVIDIA is one of those companies--could you
talk about the steps that you've taken, and what steps do you
plan to take to foster ethical and responsible development of
AI?
Mr. Dally. So we've done a lot already. We have, you know,
implemented our NeMo Guardrails. So we can basically put
guardrails around our own large language model, NeMo, so that
inappropriate prompts to the model don't get a response.
If the model inadvertently were to generate something that
might be considered offensive, that is detected and intercepted
before it can reach the user of the model. We have a set of
guidance that we provide for all of our internally generated
models and how, you know, they should be appropriately used.
We provide cards that sort of, you know, say where the
model came from, what the data set is trained on, and then we
test these models very thoroughly. And the testing depends upon
the use.
So for certain models, we test them for bias. Right? Well,
we want to make sure that when you refer to a doctor, it
doesn't automatically assume it's a him. We test them in
certain cases for safety. We have a variant of our NeMo model
called BioNeMo that's used in the medical profession. We want
to make sure that the advice that it gives is safe.
And there are a number of other measures. I----
Senator Klobuchar. Okay.
Mr. Dally [continuing]. Could give you a full list, if you
wanted.
Senator Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you.
Professor Hartzog, do you think Congress should be more
focused on regulating the inputs and design of generative AI,
or focus more on outputs and capabilities?
Professor Hartzog. Oh, can't the answer, Senator, be both?
Senator Klobuchar. Of course, it can.
Professor Hartzog. Certainly, certainly. I think that the
area that has been ignored, I think, up to this point, has been
the design and inputs to a lot of these tools. And so to the
extent that that area could use some revitalization, I would
encourage inputs and outputs, design and uses.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. And I suggest you look at these
election bills because, as we've all been talking about, I
think we have to move quickly on those. And the fact that it's
bipartisan has been a very positive thing, so.
Professor Hartzog. Absolutely.
Senator Klobuchar. I wanted to thank Mr. Smith for wearing
a purple Vikings tie. I know that that maybe was an AI-
generated message that you got to know that this would be a
smart move with me after their loss on Sunday. I will remind
you, they're playing Thursday night, so.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Smith. As a native of Wisconsin, I can assure you it
was an accident.
[Laughter.]
Senator Klobuchar. Very good. All right. Thank you, all of
you. We have a lot of work to do. Thanks.
Chair Blumenthal [presiding]. Senator Blackburn.
Senator Blackburn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Smith, I want to come to you first and talk about China
and the Chinese Communist Party. The way they have gone about--
and we've seen a lot of it on TikTok. They have these influence
campaigns that they are running to influence certain thought
processes with the American people.
I know you all just did a report on China. You covered some
of the disinformation, some of the campaigns. So talk to me a
little bit about how Microsoft, but then the industry as a
whole, can combat some of these campaigns.
Mr. Smith. I think there's a couple of things that we can
think more about and do more about.
The first is, we all should want to ensure that our own
products, and systems, and services are not used, say, by
foreign governments in this manner.
And I think that there's room for the evolution of export
controls and next generation export controls to help prevent
that. I think there's also room for a concept that's worked
since the 1990s in the world of banking and financial services.
It's these ``Know Your Customer'' requirements.
And we've been advocates for those. So that if there is
abuse of systems, the company that is offering the service
knows who is doing it and is in a better position to stop it
from happening.
I think the other side of the coin is using AI and
advancing our defensive technologies, which really start with
our ability to detect what is going on. And we've been
investing heavily in that space. That is what enabled us to
produce the report that we published. It is what enables us to
see the patterns in communications around the world.
And we're seeking to be a voice with many others that
really calls on governments to, I'll say, lift themselves to a
higher standard so that they're not using this kind of
technology to interfere in other countries, and especially in
other countries' elections
Senator Blackburn. In the report that you all did, and you
were looking at China, did you look at, what I call the other
members of the axis of evil, Russia, Iran, North Korea?
Mr. Smith. We did. And that specific report that you're
referring to was focused on what we call--it was East Asia.
Yes, we see especially prolific activities, some from China,
some from Iran. And really, the most global actor in this space
is Russia.
And we've seen that grow during the war, but we've seen it,
you know, really spiral in the recent years going back to the
middle of the last decade. We estimate that the Russian
government is spending more than $1 billion dollars a year on a
global--what we call cyber influence operation.
Part of it targets the United States. I think their
fundamental goal is to undermine public confidence in
everything that the public cares about in the United States,
but it's not unique to the United States. We see it in the
South Pacific. We see it across Africa. And I do think it's a
problem we need to do more to counter.
Senator Blackburn. So summing it up, you would see
something like a ``Know Your Customer'' or a SWIFT system,
things that apply to banking, that is there to help weed it
out. You think that companies should increase their due
diligence to make certain that their systems are appropriate,
and then being careful about doing business with countries that
may misuse a certain technology?
Mr. Smith. Generally, yes. I think----
Senator Blackburn. Yes.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. One can look at the specific
scenarios and what's more high-risk, but a ``Know Your
Customer'' requirement. We've also said a ``Know Your Cloud''
requirement, in effect----
Senator Blackburn. Okay.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. So that these systems are deployed
in secure data centers.
Senator Blackburn. Okay. Mr. Hartzog, let me come to you. I
think one of the things as we look at AI detrimental impacts,
you know, and we don't always want to look at the doomsday
scenarios.
But we are looking at some of the reports on surveillance
with the CCP surveilling the Uyghurs, with Iran surveilling
women. And I think there are other countries that are doing the
same type surveillance. So what can you do to prevent that? How
do we prevent that?
Professor Hartzog. Senator, I've argued in the past that
facial recognition technologies and certain sorts of biometric
surveillance are fundamentally dangerous, and that there's no
world in which that actually should be safe for any of us, and
that we should prohibit them outright. In the very least,
prohibition of biometric surveillance in public spaces,
prohibition of emotion recognition.
This is what I refer to as the strong bright-line measures
that draws absolute lines in the sands rather than procedural
ones that ultimately, I think, end up entrenching this kind of
harmful surveillance.
Senator Blackburn. Okay. Mr. Chairman, can I take another
30 seconds? Because Mr. Dally was shaking his head in agreement
on some things. I was catching that. Do you want to weigh in
before I close my questioning on either of these topics?
Mr. Dally. I was in general agreement, I guess, when I was
shaking my head. I think, you know, we need to be very careful
about who we sell our technology to. And, you know, NVIDIA, we,
you know, try to, you know, sell to, you know, people who are
using this for good commercial purposes and not to, you know,
suppress others. And, you know, we will continue to do that
because we don't want to see this technology misused to oppress
anybody.
Senator Blackburn. Got it. Thank you. Thanks.
Chair Blumenthal. Thanks, Senator Blackburn. My colleague
Senator Hawley mentioned that we have a forum tomorrow, which I
welcome. I think anything to aid in our education and
enlightenment--``our,'' being Senators--is a good thing. And I
just want to express the hope that some of the folks who are
appearing in that venue will also cooperate and appear before
this Subcommittee.
We will certainly be inviting more than a few of them. And
I want to express my thanks to all of you for being here, but
especially to Mr. Smith, who has to be here tomorrow to talk to
my colleagues privately. And our effort is complimentary, not
contradictory to what Senator Schumer is doing, as you know.
I'm very focused on election interference because elections
are upon us. And I want to thank my colleagues, Senators
Klobuchar, and Hawley, Coons, and Collins for taking a first
step toward addressing the harms that may result from
deepfakes, impersonation, all of the potential perils that
we've identified here.
And it seems to me that authenticating the truth or ads
that embody true images and voices is one approach. And then
banning the deepfakes and impersonations is another approach.
And obviously, banning anything in the public realm, in public
discourse endangers running afoul of the First Amendment, which
is why disclosure is often the remedy that we seek, especially
in campaign finance.
So maybe I should ask all of you whether you see that
banning certain kinds of election interference--and Mr. Smith,
you raised the spectre of foreign interference, and the frauds,
and scams that could be perpetrated, as they were in 2016.
And I think it is one of those nightmares that should keep
us up at night because we are an open society. We welcome free
expression. And AI is a form of expression, whether we regard
it as free or not, and whether it's generated and high-risk, or
simply touching up some of the background in the TV ad.
Maybe you can, each of you, talk a little bit about what
you see the potential remedies there. Mr. Dally?
Mr. Dally. So I think it is of grave concern, with the
election season coming up, that the American public may be
misled by deepfakes of various kinds. I think, as you
mentioned, that the use of provenance to authenticate a true
image or voice at its source, and then tracking that to its
deployment will let us know what a real image is. And if we
insist on AI content--AI-generated content being identified as
such, then people are at least tipped off that this is
generated and not the real thing.
You know, I think that we need to avoid, you know, having
some, you know, especially foreign, entity interfere in our
elections. But at the same time, you know, AI-generated content
is speech, and I think it would be a dangerous precedent to try
to ban something. I think it's much better to have disclosure,
as you suggested, than to ban something outright.
Chair Blumenthal. Mr. Smith?
Mr. Smith. Three thoughts.
Number one, 2024 is a critical year for elections, not only
in this country. But it's not only for the United States, it's
for the United Kingdom, for India, across the European Union.
More than two billion people will vote for who is going to
represent them. And so this is a global issue for the world's
democracies.
Number two, I think you're right to focus in particular on
the First Amendment because it's such a critical cornerstone
for American political life and the rights that we all enjoy.
And yet, I will also be quick to add, I don't think the Russian
government qualifies for protection under the First Amendment.
And if they're seeking to interfere in our elections, then
I think that the country needs to take a strong stand, and a
lot of thought needs to be given as to how to do that
effectively.
But then number three--and this I think goes to the heart
of your question and why it's such a good one--I think it's
going to require some real thought discussion and an ultimate
consensus to emerge, let me say, around one specific scenario.
Let's imagine for a moment that there is a video that
involves a Presidential candidate that originally was giving a
speech. And then let's imagine that someone uses AI to put
different words into the mouth of that candidate, and uses AI
technology to perfect it to a level that it is difficult for
people to recognize as fraudulent.
Then you get to this question, what should we do? And at
least as I've been trying, and we've been trying to think this
through, I think we have two broad alternatives. One is we take
it down, and the other is we relabel it.
If we do the first, then we're acting as censors. And I do
think that makes me nervous. I don't think that's really our
role to act as censors. And the Government really cannot, I
think, under the First Amendment. But relabeling to ensure
accuracy, I think that is probably a reasonable path. But
really what this highlights is the discussion still to be had,
and I think, the urgency for that conversation to take place.
Chair Blumenthal. And I will just say--and then I want to
come to you, Professor Hartzog--that I agree emphatically with
your point about the Russian government, or the Chinese
government, or the Saudi government as potential interferers.
They're not entitled to the protection of our Bill of
Rights when they are seeking to destroy those rights, and
purposefully trying to take advantage of a free and open
society to, in effect, decimate our freedoms.
So I think there is a distinction to be made there in terms
of national security. And I think that rubric of national
security, which is part of our framework, applies with great
force in this area. And that is different from a Presidential
candidate putting up an ad that, in effect, puts words in the
mouth of another candidate.
And as you may know, we began these hearings with
introductory remarks from me that were impersonation taken from
my comments on the floor--taking my voice from speeches that I
made on the floor of the United States Senate with content
generated by ChatGPT that sounded exactly like something I
would say in a voice that was indistinguishable from mine.
And, obviously, I disclosed that fact at the hearing. But
in real time, as Mark Twain famously said, ``A lie travels
halfway around the world before the truth gets out of bed.''
And we need to make sure that there is action in real time if
you're going to do the kind of identification that you
suggested. Real time, meaning real time in a campaign which is
measured in minutes and hours, not in days and months.
Professor Hartzog?
Professor Hartzog. Thank you, Senator. Like you, I'm
nervous about just coming out and saying we're going to ban all
forms of speech, particularly, when you're talking about
something as important as this, political speech.
And like you, I also worry about disclosure alone as a half
measure. And earlier in this hearing, it was asked, ``What is a
half measure? '' And I think that goes toward answering your
question today. I think the best way to think about half
measures is an approach that is necessary, but not sufficient.
That risks giving us the illusion that we've done enough, but
ultimately--and I think this is the pivotal point--doesn't
really disrupt the business model and the financial incentives
that have gotten us here in the first place.
And so to help answer your question, one thing that I would
recommend is thinking about throwing lots of different tools--
which I applaud your bipartisan framework for doing, is
bringing lots of different tools to bear on this problem,
thinking about the role that surveillance, advertising plays in
powering a lot of these harmful technologies and ecosystems
that doesn't allow the system--the lie just to be created, but
flourish and to be amplified.
And so I would think about rules and safeguards that we
could do to help limit those financial incentives, borrowing
from standard principles of accountability. Things like, we use
disclosures where it's effective, it's not effective. You have
to make it safe. And if you can't make it safe, it shouldn't
exist.
Chair Blumenthal. Yes. I think I'm going to turn to Senator
Hawley for more questions. But I think this is a real
conundrum. We need to do something about it. We need more than
half measures. We can't delude ourselves by thinking with a
false sense of comfort that we've solved the problem if we
don't provide effective enforcement.
And to be very blunt, the Federal Elections Commission
often has been less than fully effective--a lot less than fully
effective in enforcing rules relating to campaigns.
And so, there again, an oversight entity with strong
enforcement authority, sufficient resources, and the will to
act is going to be very important if we're going to address
this problem in real time. Senator Hawley.
Senator Hawley. Mr. Smith, let me just come back to
something you said, thinking about now workers. You talked
about Wendy's, I think it was, that automating the drive-
through and talking about, you know, this was a good thing. I
just want to press on that a little bit.
Is it--is it a good thing that workers lose their jobs to
AI, whether it's at Wendy's, or whether it's at Walmart, or
whether it's at the local hardware store? I mean, is it--you
pointed out that--your comment was that there's really no
creativity involved in taking orders through the drive-through.
But that is a job, oftentimes a first job for younger
Americans.
But hey, in this economy where the wages of blue collar
workers have been flat for 30, 40 years and running, what
worries me is that oftentimes what we hear from the tech
sector, to be honest with you, is that jobs that don't have
creativity, as tech defines, that don't have value. I'm frankly
scared to death that AI will replace lots of jobs that tech
types think aren't creative and will leave even more blue
collar workers without any place to turn.
So my question to you is, can we expect more of this? And
is it really progress for folks to lose those kind of jobs
that, you know--I'd suspect that's not the best paying job in
the world, but at least it's a job. And do we really want to
see more of these jobs lost?
Mr. Smith. Well, to be clear, at first I didn't say whether
it was a good or bad thing. I was asked to predict what jobs
would be impacted and I identified that job as one that likely
would be.
But let's, I think, step back, because I think your
question is critically important. Let's first reflect on the
fact that, you know, we've had about 200 years of automation
that have impacted jobs, sometimes for the better, sometimes
for the worst.
In Wisconsin, where I grew up, or in Missouri, where my
father grew up, if you go back 150 years, it took 20 people to
harvest an acre of wheat or corn. And now it takes one. So 19
people don't work on that acre anymore. And that's been an
ongoing part of technology.
The real question is this, how do we ensure that technology
advances so that we help people get better jobs, get the skills
they need for those jobs, and hopefully, do it in a way that
broadens economic opportunity rather than narrows it.
I think the thing we should be the most concerned by is
that since the 1990s, and I think this is the point you're
making, if you look at the flow of digital technology--you
know, fundamentally we've lived in a world that has widened the
economic divide.
Those people with a college or graduate education have seen
their incomes rise in real terms. Those people with, say, a
high school diploma or less, have seen their income level
actually drop compared to where it was in the 1990s.
So what do we do now? Well, I'll at least say what I think
our goal should be. Can we use this technology to help advance
productivity for a much broader range of people, including
people who didn't have the good fortune to go to, say, where
you or I went to college or law school?
And can we do it in a way that not only makes them more
productive, but actually reaps some of the dividends of that
productivity for themselves in a growing income level? I think
it's that conversation that we need to have.
Senator Hawley. Yes. I agree with you, and I hope that that
is--I hope that that's what AI could do. You talked about the
farm used to take 20 people to do what one person could do. It
used to take thousands of people to produce textiles, or
furniture, or other things in this company where now it's zero.
So we can tell the tale in different ways.
I'm not sure that seeing working class jobs go overseas or
be replaced entirely is a success story. In fact, I'd argue
it's not at all. It's not a success story. And I'd argue more
broadly that our economic policy the last 30 years has been
downright disastrous for working people.
And tech companies, and financial institutions, and,
certainly, banks, and Wall Street, they have reaped huge
profits, but blue collar workers can barely find a good-paying
job.
I don't want AI to be the latest accelerant of that trend.
And so I don't really want every service station in America to
be manned by some computer such that nobody can get a job
anymore, get their foot in the door, or start their climb up
the ladder. That that worries me.
Let me ask you about something else here in my expiring
time. You mentioned national security.
Mr. Smith. Mm-hmm.
Senator Hawley. Critically important. Of course, there's no
national security threat that is more significant for the
United States than China. Let me just ask you, is Microsoft too
entwined with China?
You have the Microsoft Research Asia that was set up in
Beijing back in the late 1990s. You've got centers now in
Shanghai and elsewhere. You've got all kinds of cooperation
with Chinese state-owned businesses. I'm looking at an article
here from Protocol Magazine where one of their contributors
said that Microsoft had been the alma mater of Chinese big
tech.
Are you concerned about your degree of entwinement with the
Chinese government? Do you need to be decoupling in order to
make sure that our national security interests aren't fatally
compromised?
Mr. Smith. I think it's something that we need to be and
are focused on. To some degree in some technology fields,
Microsoft is the alma mater of the technology leaders in every
country in the world because of the role that we've played over
the last 40 years.
But when it comes to China today, we are and need to have
very specific controls on who uses our technology, and for
what, and how. That's why we don't, for example, do work on
quantum computing, or we don't provide facial recognition
services, or focus on synthetic media, or a whole variety of
things.
While at the same time, when Starbucks has stores in China,
I think it's good that they can run their services in our data
center rather than a Chinese company's data center.
Senator Hawley. Well, just on facial recognition, I mean,
back in 2016, your company released this database, MS-Celeb, 10
million faces without the consent of the folks who were in the
database. You eventually took it down although it took 3 years.
China used that database to train much of its facial
recognition software and technology.
I mean, it isn't that a problem? You said that Microsoft
might be the alma mater of many companies AI, but China's
unique. No? I mean, China is running concentration camps using
digital technology like we've never seen before. I mean, isn't
that a problem for your company to be in any way involved in
that?
Mr. Smith. We don't want to be involved in that in any way,
and I don't believe we are. I think that----
Senator Hawley. Are you going to close your centers in
China, your Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing, or your center in
Shanghai?
Mr. Smith. I don't think that will accomplish what you are
asking us----
Senator Hawley. You're running thousands of people through
your centers out into the Chinese government and Chinese state-
owned enterprises. Isn't that a problem?
Mr. Smith. First of all, there's a big premise, and I don't
embrace the premise that that is in fact what we're doing. We
are----
Senator Hawley. Well, which part is wrong?
Mr. Smith. The notion that we're running thousands of
people through, and then they're going into the Chinese
government----
Senator Hawley. Is that not right? I thought you had 10,000
employees in China whom you've recruited from Chinese state-
owned agencies, Chinese state-owned businesses. They come work
for you, and then they go back to these state-owned entities.
Mr. Smith. We have employees in China. In fact, we have
that number. I don't--to my knowledge, that is not where
they're coming from. That is not where they're going. We are
not running that kind of revolving door. And it's all about
what we do and who we do it with that I think is of paramount
importance, and that's what we're focused on.
Senator Hawley. You'd condemn what the Chinese government's
doing to the Uyghurs, and the Xinjiang Province, and all of
that?
Mr. Smith. We do everything we can to ensure that our
technology is not used in any way for that kind of activity in
China and around the world, by the way.
Senator Hawley. But you condemn it, to be clear?
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Senator Hawley. What are your safeguards that you have in
place such that your technology is not further enabling the
Chinese government, given the number of people you employ there
and the technology you develop there?
Mr. Smith. Well, you take something like facial
recognition, which is at the heart of your question. We have
very tight controls that limit the use of facial recognition in
China, including controls that, in effect, make it very
difficult, if not impossible, to use it for any kind of real
time surveillance at all.
And by the way, the thing we should remember, the U.S. is a
leader in many AI fields. China's the leader in facial
recognition technology and the AI for it. And----
Senator Hawley. Well, in part because of the information
that you helped them acquire. No?
Mr. Smith. No. It's because they have the world's most
data.
Senator Hawley. Well, yes, but you gave them----
Mr. Smith. No.
Senator Hawley [continuing]. Ten million.
Mr. Smith. Well, it--I--I don't think that's----
Senator Hawley. You don't think that had anything to do
with it?
Mr. Smith. I don't think--when you have a country of 1.4
billion people and you decide to have facial recognition used
in so many places, it gives that country a mass of data.
Senator Hawley. But are you saying that the database that
Microsoft released in 2016, MS-Celeb, you're saying that that
wasn't used by the Chinese government to train their facial
recognition?
Mr. Smith. I am not familiar with that, and I add it to the
list. I'd be happy to provide you with information.
Senator Hawley. Okay.
Mr. Smith. But my goodness, the advance in that facial
recognition technology--if you go to another country where
they're using facial recognition technology, it's highly
unlikely it's American technology. It's highly likely that it's
Chinese technology because they are such leaders in that field.
Which I think is fine. I mean, if you want to pick a field
where the United States doesn't want to be a technology leader,
I'd put facial recognition technology on that list. But let's
recognize it's homegrown.
Senator Hawley. How much money has Microsoft invested in AI
development in China?
Mr. Smith. I don't know, but I will tell you this--okay.
The revenue that we make in China, which accounts for, what,
about one out of every six humans on this planet? It's 1.5
percent of our global revenue. It's not the market for us that
it is for other industries or even some other tech companies.
Senator Hawley. Sounds then like you can afford to
decouple?
Mr. Smith. But is that the right thing to do?
Senator Hawley. Yes. And again, a regime that is
fundamentally evil, that is inflicting the kind of atrocities
on its own citizens that you just alluded to, that is doing to
the Uyghurs, what it's doing, that it's running modern day
concentration camps--yes, I think it is.
Mr. Smith. But there's two questions that I think are at
least are worthy of thought. Number one, do you want General
Motors to sell or manufacture cars--let's just say sell cars in
China? Do you want to create jobs for people in Michigan or
Missouri so that those cars can be sold in China? If the answer
to that is yes, then think about the second question.
How do you want General Motors in China to run its
operations, and where would you like it to store its data?
Would you like it to be in a secure data center run by an
American company, or would you like it to be run by a Chinese
company?
Which will better protect General Motors' trades secrets?
I'll argue we should be there so that we can protect the data
of American companies, European companies, Japanese companies.
Even if you disagree on everything else, that I believe serves
this country well.
Senator Hawley. You know, I think you're doing a lot more
than just protecting data in China. You have major research
centers, tens of thousands of employees.
And to your question, do I want General Motors to be
building cars in China? No, I don't. I want them to be making
cars here in the United States with American workers. And do I
want American companies to be aiding in any way the Chinese
government and their oppressive tactics? I don't.
Senator Ossoff, would you like me to yield to you now? Are
you ready?
Chair Blumenthal. I have been very hesitant to interrupt--
--
Senator Hawley. You've been very, very patient.
Chair Blumenthal [continuing]. The discussion. The
conversation here has been very interesting. And I'm going to
call on Senator Ossoff, and then I have a couple of follow-up
questions.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you,
all, for your testimony. Just getting down to the fundamentals,
Mr. Smith. If we're going to move forward with a legislative
framework or a regulatory framework, we have to define clearly
in legislative text precisely what it is that we are
regulating.
What is the scope of regulated activities, technologies,
and products? So how should we consider that question? And how
do we define the scope of technologies, the scope of services,
the scope of products that should be subject to a regime of
regulation that is focused on artificial intelligence?
Mr. Smith. I think there's three layers of technology on
which we need to focus in defining the scope of legislation and
regulation.
First is the area that has been the central focus of 2023
in the executive branch, and here on Capitol Hill. It's these
so-called frontier or foundation models that are the most
powerful, say, for something like generative AI.
In addition, there are the applications that use AI, or as
Senators Blumenthal and Hawley have said, ``the deployers of
AI.'' If there is an application that calls on that model in
what we consider to be a high-risk scenario, meaning it could
make a decision that would have an impact on, say, the privacy
rights, the civil liberties, the rights of children or needs of
children, then I think we need to think hard, and have law and
regulation that is effective to protect Americans.
And then the third layer is the data center infrastructure
where these models and where these applications are actually
deployed. And we should ensure that those data centers are
secure, that there are cybersecurity requirements that the
companies, including ours, need to meet.
We should ensure that there are safety systems at one, two,
or all three levels if there is an AI system that is going to
automate and control, say, something like critical
infrastructure, such as the electrical grid.
So those are the areas where we would say start there with
some clear thinking, and a lot of effort to learn and apply the
details--but focus there.
Senator Ossoff. As more and more models are trained and
developed to higher levels of power and capability, there will
be a proliferation--there may be a proliferation of models--
perhaps not the frontier models, perhaps not those at the
bleeding edge--that use the most compute of all, powerful
enough to have serious implications.
So is the question, which models are the most powerful in a
moment in time, or is there a threshold of capability or power
that should define the scope of regulated technology?
Mr. Smith. I think you've just posed one of the critical
questions that, frankly, a lot of people inside the tech
sector, and across the Government, and in academia, are really
working to answer. And I think the technology is evolving and
the conversation needs to evolve with it.
Let's just posit this: There's something like GPT-4 from
OpenAI. Let's just posit it can do 10,000 things really well.
It's expensive to create, and it's relatively easy to regulate
in the scheme of things because there's 1, or 2, or 10.
But now let's go to where you're going, which I think is
right. What does the future bring in terms of proliferation?
Imagine that there's an academic at Professor Hartzog's
university who says, ``I want to create an open source model.
It's not going to do 10,000 things well, but it's going to do 4
things well. It won't require as many NVIDIA GPUs. It won't,
you know, require as much data.''
But let's imagine that that could be used to create the
next virus that could spread around the planet. Then you'd say,
``Well, we really need to ensure that there's safety,
architecture, and controls around that, as well.''
And that's the conundrum. That's why this is a hard problem
to solve. It's why we're trying to build safety architecture in
our data centers so that open-source models can, say, run in
them, and still be used in ways that will prohibit that kind of
harm from taking place.
But as you think about a licensing regime, this is one of
the hard questions. Who needs a license? You don't want it to
be so hard that only a small number of big companies can get
it. But then you also need to make sure that you're not
requiring people to get it when they really, we would say,
don't need a license for what they're doing.
And, you know, the beauty of the framework, in my view, is
it starts to frame the issue. It starts to define the
question----
Senator Ossoff. Let me ask this question----
Mr. Smith [continuing]. And how we work on----
Senator Ossoff [continuing]. Is it a license to train a
model to a certain level of capability? Is it a license to
sell, or license access to that model? Or is it a license to
purchase or deploy that model? Who is the licensed entity?
Mr. Smith. That's another question that is key and may have
different answers in different scenarios, but mostly I would
say it should be a license to deploy that.
You know, I think that there may well be obligations to
disclose to, say, an independent authority when a training run
begins depending on what the goal--when the training run ends,
so that an oversight body can follow it just the way, say,
might happen when a company's building a new commercial
airplane.
And then there are--what's emerging--the good news is
there's emerging a foundation of, call it best practices, for
then how the model should be trained, what kind of testing
there should be, what harms should be addressed. That's a big
topic that needs----
Senator Ossoff. When you say----
Mr. Smith [continuing]. Discussion.
Senator Ossoff. Forgive me, Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Senator Ossoff. When you say, ``a license to deploy''----
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Senator Ossoff [continuing]. Do you mean, for example, if a
Microsoft Office product wishes to use a GPT model for some
user-serving purpose within your suite, you would need a
license to deploy GPT in that way? Or do you mean that GPT
would require a license to offer to Microsoft?
And putting aside whether or not this is a plausible
commercial scenario, the question is what's the structure of
the licensing arrangement?
Mr. Smith. In this case, it's more the latter. Imagine--
look, think about it like Boeing. Boeing builds a new plane.
Before it can sell it to United Airlines and United Airlines
can start to fly it, the FAA is going to certify that it's
safe.
Now, imagine where it--call it GPT-12, whatever you want to
name it. You know, before that gets released for use, I think
you can imagine a licensing regime that would say that it needs
to be licensed after it's been, in effect, certified as safe.
And then you have to ask yourself, well, how do you make
that work so that we don't have the Government slow everything
down? And what I would say is you bring together three things.
First, you need industry standards so that you have a
common foundation and well-understood way as to how training
should take place.
Second, you need national regulation.
And third, if we're going to have a global economy, at
least in the countries where we want these things to work, you
probably need a level of international coordination.
And I'd say, look at the world of civil aviation. That's
fundamentally how it has worked since the 1940s. Let's try to
learn from it and see how we might apply something like that,
or other models, here.
Senator Ossoff. Mr. Dally, how would you respond to the
question, in a field where the technical capabilities are
accelerating at a rapid rate, future rate unknown, where and
according to what standard, or metric, or definition of power
do we draw the line for what requires a license for deployment
and what can be freely deployed without oversight by the
Government?
Mr. Dally. I think it's a tough question because I think
you have to balance two important considerations. The first is,
you know, the risks presented by a model of whatever power, and
on the other side is the fact that, you know, we would like to
ensure that the U.S. stays ahead in this field.
And to do that, we want to make sure that, you know,
individual academics and entrepreneurs with a good idea can,
you know, move forward, and innovate, and deploy models without
huge barriers.
Senator Ossoff. So it's the capability of the model. It's
the risk presented by its deployment without oversight. Is that
the--because the thing is, we're going to have to write
legislation, and the legislation is going to have to, in words,
define the scope of regulated products. And so we're going to
have to bound that which is subject to a licensing arrangement
or wherever we land and that which is not. So----
Mr. Dally. I think it is----
Senator Ossoff [continuing]. What I want is the very--and
so how do you--I mean----
Mr. Dally. It is dependent on the application. Because if
you have a model which is, you know, basically determining a
medical procedure, there's a high-risk with that, you know,
depending on the patient outcome.
If you have another model which is, you know, controlling
the temperature in your building, if it gets a little bit wrong
you may be, you know, consume a little bit too much power, or
maybe, you know, you're not as comfortable as you would be. But
it's not a life-threatening situation.
So I think you need to regulate the things that are, have
high consequences if the model goes awry.
Senator Ossoff. And I'm on the Chairman's borrowed time. So
just tap the gavel when you want me to stop.
Chair Blumenthal. You had to wait.
Senator Ossoff. That's true.
Chair Blumenthal. So we'll give you a couple of----
Senator Ossoff. Okay. Good.
Chair Blumenthal [continuing]. Extra minutes.
Senator Ossoff. Okay. Professor--and I'd be curious to hear
from others as concisely with respect for the Chairman's
follow-ups--how does any of this work without international
law?
I mean, isn't it correct that a model, potentially a very
powerful and dangerous model, for example, whose purpose is to
unlock CBRN or mass destructive virological capabilities to a
relatively unsophisticated actor, once trained, it's relatively
lightweight to transport? And without, A, an international
legal system, and B, a level of surveillance, that seems
inconceivable into the flow of data across the internet--how
can that be controlled and policed?
Professor Hartzog. It's a great question, Senator. And with
respect to being efficient, in my answer, I'll simply say that
there are going to be limits even assuming that we do need
international cooperation, which I would agree with you.
I mean, we've already started thinking about ways in which,
for example, within the EU, which has already deployed some
significant AI regulation, we might design frameworks that are
compatible with that that requires some sort of interaction.
But ultimately what I worry about is actually deploying a
level of surveillance that we've never before seen in an
attempt to perfectly capture the entire chain of AI. And that's
simply not possible. And so----
Senator Ossoff. And I share that concern about privacy,
which is in part why I raised the point. I mean, how can we
know what folks are loading a lightweight model, once trained,
onto perhaps a device that's not even online anymore?
Professor Hartzog. Right. Yes, there are limits, I think,
to what----
Senator Ossoff. Right.
Professor Hartzog [continuing]. We'll ever be able to
know----
Senator Ossoff. Either of you want to take a stab before I
get gaveled out here?
Mr. Smith. I would just say you're right. There's going to
need--to be a need for international coordination. I think it's
more likely to come from like-minded governments than perhaps
global governance, at least in the initial years. I do think
there's a lot we can learn.
We were talking with Senator Blackburn about the SWIFT
system for financial transactions.
And, you know, somehow we've managed globally and
especially in the United States for 30 years to have ``Know
Your Customer'' requirements obligations for banks. Money has
moved around the world. Nothing is perfect. I mean, that's why
we have laws. But it's worked to do a lot of good to protect
against, say, terrorist or criminal uses of money that would
cause concern.
Mr. Dally. Well, I think you're right in that these models
are very portable. You could put the parameters of most models,
even the very large ones, on a large USB drive and, you know,
carry it with you somewhere. You could also train them in a
data center anywhere in the world.
So, you know, I think it's really the use of the model and
the deployment that you can effectively regulate. It's going to
be hard to regulate the creation of it because if people can't
create them here, they'll create them somewhere else.
And I think we have to be very careful if we want the U.S.
to stay ahead--that we want the best people creating these
models here in the U.S. and not to go somewhere else where, you
know, the regulatory climate has driven them.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chair Blumenthal. Thank you, Senator Ossoff. I hope you are
okay with a few more questions. We've been at it for a while.
You've been very patient.
Mr. Smith. Do we have a choice?
[Laughter.]
Chair Blumenthal. No.
[Laughter.]
Chair Blumenthal. But thank you very much. It's been very
useful. I want to follow up on a number of the questions I've
asked.
First of all, on the international issue, there are
examples and models for international cooperation. Mr. Smith,
you mentioned civil aviation. The 737 MAX--I think I have it
right--when it crashed, it was a plane that had to be redone in
many respects.
And companies' airlines around the world looked to the
United States for that redesign and then approval. Civil
aviation, atomic energy--not always completely effective, but
it has worked in many respects.
And so I think there are international models here where,
frankly, the United States is a leader by example and best
practices are adopted by other countries when we support them.
And frankly, in this instance, the EU has been ahead of us in
many respects regarding social media. And we are following
their leadership by example.
I want to come to this issue of having centers--whether
they're in China or, for that matter, elsewhere in the world--
requiring safeguards so that we are not allowing our technology
to be misused in China against the Uyghurs, and preventing that
technology from being stolen, or people we train there from
serving bad purposes.
Are you satisfied, Mr. Smith, that it is possible, in fact,
that you are doing it in China, that is preventing the evils
that could resolve from doing business there in that way?
Mr. Smith. I would say two things. First, I feel good about
our track record, and our vigilance, and the constant need for
us to be vigilant about what services we offer to whom and how
they're used. It's really those three things. And I would take
from that what I think is probably the conversation we'll need
to have as a country about export controls more broadly.
There's three fundamental areas of technology where the
United States is today, I would argue, the global leader.
First, the GPU chips from a company like NVIDIA.
Second, the cloud infrastructure from a company like, say,
Microsoft.
And the third, is the foundation model from a firm such as
OpenAI, and, of course, Google, and AWS, and other companies
are global leaders as well.
And I think if we want to feel that we're good in creating
jobs in the United States by inventing and manufacturing here--
as you said, Senator Hawley, which I completely endorse--and
good, the technology is being used properly, we probably need
an export control regime that weaves those three things
together.
For example, there might be a country in the world--let's
just set aside China for a moment. Leave that out. Let's just
say there's another country where you, all, in the executive
branch would say, ``We have some qualms, but we want U.S.
technology to be present and we want U.S. technology to be used
properly,'' the way that would make you feel good.
You might say then we'll let NVIDIA export chips to that
country to be used in, say, a data center of a company that we
trust that is licensed, even here, for that use, with the model
being used in a secure way in that data center with a ``Know
Your Customer'' requirement, and with guardrails that put
certain kinds of use off limits.
That may well be where Government policy needs to go, and
how the tech sector needs to support the Government and work
with the Government to make it a reality.
Chair Blumenthal. I think that that answer is very
insightful and raises other questions. I would kind of
analogize this situation to nuclear proliferation. We cooperate
over safety in some respects with other countries, some of them
adversaries, but we still do everything in our power to prevent
American companies from helping China or Russia in their
nuclear programs.
Part of that non-proliferation effort is through export
controls. We impose sanctions. We have limits and rules around
selling and sharing certain chokepoint technologies related to
nuclear enrichment, as well as biological warfare,
surveillance, and other national security risks. And our
framework, in fact, envisions sanctions and safeguards
precisely in those areas for exactly the reasons we've been
discussing here.
Last October, the Biden administration used existing legal
authorities as a first step in blocking the sale of some high-
performance chips and equipment to make those chips to China.
And our framework calls for export controls, and sanctions, and
legal restrictions.
So I guess a question that we will be discussing--we're not
going to resolve it today, regrettably. But we would appreciate
your input going forward, and I'm inviting any of the listening
audience here in the room, or elsewhere, to participate in this
conversation on this issue and others--how should we draw a
line on the hardware and technology that American companies are
allowed to provide, anyone else in the world, any other
adversaries or friends? Because as you've observed, Mr. Dally,
and I think all of us accept, it's easily proliferated.
Mr. Dally. Yes. If I could comment on this?
Chair Blumenthal. Sure.
Mr. Dally. You drew an analogy to, you know, nuclear
regulation and mentioned the word chokepoint. And I think the
difference here is that there really isn't a chokepoint. And I
think there's a careful balance to be made between, you know,
limiting, you know, where, you know, our chips go and what
they're used for.
And, you know, disadvantaging American companies and the
whole food chain that feeds them because--you know, we're not
the only people who make chips that can do AI. I wish we were,
but we're not.
There are companies around the world that can do it. There
are other American companies. There are companies in Asia.
There are companies in Europe. And if people can't get the
chips they need to do AI from us, they will get them somewhere
else.
And what will happen then is--you know, it turns out that
chips aren't really the things that make them useful. It's the
software. And if all of a sudden the standard chips for people
to do AI become something from--you know, pick a country,
Singapore, you know, all of a sudden all the software engineers
will start writing all the software for those chips.
They'll become the dominant chips. And, you know, the
leadership of that technology area will have shifted from the
U.S. to Singapore or whatever other country becomes dominant.
So we have to be very careful to balance, you know, the
national security considerations and the abusive technology
considerations against preserving the U.S. lead in this
technology area.
Chair Blumenthal. Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Yes. It's a really important point. And what you
have is the argument-counter argument. Let me for a moment
channel what Senator Hawley often voices that I think is also
important. Sometimes you can approach this and say, ``Look, if
we don't provide this to somebody, somebody else will. So let's
not worry about it.'' I get it.
But at the end of the day, you know, whether you're a
company or a country, I think you do have to have clarity about
how you want your technology to be used.
And, you know, I fully recognize that there may be a day in
the future after I retire from Microsoft when I look back, and
I don't want to say, ``Oh, we did something bad. Because if we
didn't, somebody else would have.''
I want to say, ``No, we had clear values, and we had
principles, and we had in place guardrails and protections. And
we turned down sales so that somebody couldn't use our
technology to abuse other people's rights. And if we lost some
business, that's the best reason in the world to lose some
business.''
And what's true of a company is true as a country. And so
I'm not trying to say that your view shouldn't be considered.
It should. That's why this issue is complicated. How to strike
that balance?
Chair Blumenthal. Professor Hartzog, do you have any
comment?
Professor Hartzog. I think that was well said. And I would
only add that it's also worth considering in this discussion
about how we sort of safeguard these incredibly dangerous
technologies and the risk that could happen if they, for
example, proliferated. If it's so dangerous, then we need to
revisit the existential question again.
And I just bring it back to thinking not only about how we
put guardrails on, but how we lead by example, which I think
you brought up which is really important. And we don't win the
race to violate human rights. Right? And that's not one that we
want to be running.
Chair Blumenthal. And it isn't simply Chinese companies
importing chips from the United States and building their own
data centers. Most AI companies rent capabilities from cloud
providers. We need to make sure that the cloud providers are
not used to circumvent our export controls or sanctions.
Mr. Smith, you raised the ``Know Your Customer'' rules.
Knowing your customers would require cloud AI, cloud providers
whose models are deployed to know what companies are using
those models.
If you're leasing out a supercomputer, you need to make
sure that your customer isn't the People's Liberation Army.
That it isn't being used to subjugate Uyghurs. That it isn't
used to do facial recognitions on dissidents or opponents in
Iran, for example.
But I do think that you've made a critical point, which is,
there is a moral imperative here. And I think there--there is a
lesson in the history of this great country, the greatest in
the history of the world, that when we lose our moral compass,
we lose our way.
And when we simply do economic or political interests,
sometimes it's very shortsighted, and we wander into a
geopolitical swamp and quicksand. So I think these kinds of
issues are very important to keep in mind when we lead by
example.
I want to just make a final point, and then if Senator
Hawley has questions, we're going to let him ask. But on this
issue of worker displacement, I mentioned at the very outset, I
think we are on the cusp of a new industrial revolution.
We've seen this movie before, as they say. And it didn't
turn out that well in the industrial revolution where workers
were displaced en masse. Those textile factories and the mills
in this country and all around the world went out of business,
essentially, or replaced the workers with automation and
mechanics.
And I would respond by saying, we need to train those
workers. We need to provide education. You've alluded to it,
and it needn't be a 4-year college.
You know, in my State of Connecticut--Electric Boat, Pratt
& Whitney, Sikorsky--defense contractors are going to need
thousands of welders, electricians, tradespeople of all kinds
who will have not just jobs, they'll have careers that require
skills that, frankly, I wouldn't begin to know how to do. And I
haven't the aptitude to do. And that's no false modesty.
So I think there are tremendous opportunities here, not
just in the creative spheres that you have mentioned where, you
know, we may think higher human talents may come into play, but
in all kinds of jobs that are being created daily already in
this country.
And as I go around the State of Connecticut, the most
common comment I hear from businesses: ``We can't find enough
people to do the jobs we have right now. We can't find people
to fill the openings that we have.'' And that is, in my view,
maybe the biggest challenge for the American economy today.
Mr. Smith. I think that is such an important point. And
it's really worth putting everything we think about for jobs
because I wholeheartedly endorse, Senator Hawley, what you were
saying before, about let's--we need--we want people to have
jobs, we want them to earn a good living, etc.
First, let's consider the demographic context in which jobs
are created. The world has just entered a shift of the kind
that it literally hasn't seen since the 1400s, namely,
populations that are leveling off or in much of the world now
declining.
One of the things we look at is every country and measure
over 5-year periods, is the working age population increasing
or decreasing? And by how much?
From 2020 to 2025, the working age population in this
country, people aged 20 to 64, is only going to grow by one
million people. The last time it grew by that smaller number,
you know who was President of the United States? John Adams.
That's how far back you have to go.
And if you look at a country like Italy, take that group of
people over the next 20 years, it's going to decline by 41
percent. And what's true of Italy is true almost to the same
degree in Germany. It's already happening in Japan, in Korea.
So we live in a world where for many countries, we suddenly
encounter what you actually find, I suspect, when you go to
Hartford, or St. Louis, or Kansas City. People can't find
enough police officers, enough nurses, enough teachers, and
that is a problem we need to desperately focus on solving. So
how do we do that? I do think AI is something that can help.
And even in something like a call center. One of the things
that's fascinating to me, we have more than 3,000 customers
around the world running proofs of concept. One fascinating one
is a bank in the Netherlands.
They said, you go into a call center today, the desks of
the workers look like a trading floor in Wall Street. They have
six different terminals. Somebody calls, they're desperately
trying to find the answer to a question.
You know, with something like GPT-4, with our services, six
terminals can become one. Somebody who's working there can ask
a question, the answer comes up. And what they're finding is
that the person who's answering the phone, talking to a
customer, can now spend more time concentrating on the customer
and what they need.
And I appreciate all the challenges. There's so much
uncertainty. We desperately need to focus on skilling, but I
really do hope that this is an era where we can use this to,
frankly, help people fill jobs, get training, and focus more--
let's just put it this way. I'm excited about artificial
intelligence. I'm even more excited about human intelligence.
And if we can use artificial intelligence to help people
exercise more human intelligence and earn more money doing so,
that would be something that would be way more exciting to
pursue than everything that we've had to grapple with the last
decade around, say, social media and the like.
Chair Blumenthal. Well our framework very much focuses on
treatment of workers, about providing more training. It may not
be something that this entity will do, but it is definitely
something that it has to address.
And it's not only displacement, but also working conditions
and opportunities within the workplace for promotion, to
prevent discrimination, to protect civil rights. We haven't
talked about it in detail, but we deal with it in our framework
in terms of transparency around decision-making.
And, you know, China may try to steal our technology, it
can't steal our people. And China has its own population
challenges with the need for more people, skilled labor. But I
say about Connecticut, you know, we don't have gold mines, or
oil wells. What we have is a really able workforce, and that's
going to be the key to, I think, America's economy in the
future. And AI can help promote development of that workforce.
Senator Hawley, anything from you?
Senator Hawley. Nothing further.
Chair Blumenthal. You all have been really patient and so
has our staff. I want to thank our staff for this hearing, but
most important, we're going to continue these hearings. It is
so helpful to us. I can go down our framework and tie the
proposals to specific comments made by Sam Altman or others who
have testified before, and we will enrich and expand our
framework with the insights that you have given us.
So I want to thank all of our witnesses, and, again, look
forward to continue our bipartisan approach here. You made that
point, Mr. Smith. We have to be bipartisan and adopt full
measures, not half measures.
Thank you, all. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:52 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
A P P E N D I X
Submitted by Chair Blumenthal:
California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA), letter.............. 119
Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP), letter and attachment.. 123
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Responses of Brad Smith to Questions Submitted by Senator Hawley
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