[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                  UNLOCKING THE NEXT GENERATION OF AI
                      IN THE U.S. FINANCIAL SYSTEM
                       FOR CONSUMERS, BUSINESSES,
                          AND COMPETITIVENESS
=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                 SUBCOMMITTEE ON DIGITAL ASSETS, FINANCIAL 
                 TECHNOLOGY, AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 18, 2025

                               __________

                           Serial No. 119-43

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services
       
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]       

                            www.govinfo.gov
                            
                             __________

                  U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
63-432 PDF               WASHINGTON : 2026
=======================================================================                            

                 HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                    FRENCH HILL, Arkansas, Chairman

BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan, Vice        MAXINE WATERS, California, Ranking 
    Chairman                             Member
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma             SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas, Vice 
PETE SESSIONS, Texas                     Ranking Member
ANN WAGNER, Missouri                 NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York
ANDY BARR, Kentucky                  BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas                GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
TOM EMMER, Minnesota                 DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia            STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio                AL GREEN, Texas
JOHN W. ROSE, Tennessee              EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri
BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin               JAMES A. HIMES, Connecticut
WILLIAM R. TIMMONS, IV, South        BILL FOSTER, Illinois
    Carolina                         JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio
MARLIN STUTZMAN, Indiana             JUAN VARGAS, California
RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina         JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey
DANIEL MEUSER, Pennsylvania          VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas
YOUNG KIM, California                SEAN CASTEN, Illinois
BYRON DONALDS, Florida               AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts
ANDREW R. GARBARINO, New York        RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin          RITCHIE TORRES, New York
MIKE FLOOD, Nebraska                 NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia
MICHAEL LAWLER, New York             BRITTANY PETTERSEN, Colorado
MONICA DE LA CRUZ, Texas             CLEO FIELDS, Louisiana
ANDREW OGLES, Tennessee              JANELLE BYNUM, Oregon
ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa                   SAM LICCARDO, California
LISA McCLAIN, Michigan
MARIA SALAZAR, Florida
TROY DOWNING, Montana
MIKE HARIDOPOLOS, Florida
TIM MOORE, North Carolina

                      Ben Johnson, Staff Director

                                 ------                                

 SUBCOMMITTEE ON DIGITAL ASSETS, FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY, AND ARTIFICIAL 
                              INTELLIGENCE

                    BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin, Chairman

TOM EMMER, Minnesota, Vice Chairman  STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts, 
BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan                  Ranking Member
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio                BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOHN W. ROSE, Tennessee              BILL FOSTER, Illinois
WILLIAM R. TIMMONS, IV, South        JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey
    Carolina                         AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts
MARLIN STUTZMAN, Indiana             RITCHIE TORRES, New York
BYRON DONALDS, Florida               SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas
ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa                   BRITTANY PETTERSEN, Colorado
TROY DOWNING, Montana                SAM LICCARDO, California
MIKE HARIDOPOLOS, Florida
TIM MOORE, North Carolina
                        
                        C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                      Thursday, September 18, 2025
                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Hon. Bryan Steil, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, 
  Financial Technology and Inclusion, a U.S. Representative from 
  Wisconsin......................................................     1
Hon. Stephen Lynch, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Digital 
  Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion, a U.S. 
  Representative from Massachusetts..............................     2

                               STATEMENTS

Hon. French Hill, Chairman of the Committee on Financial 
  Services, a U.S. Representative from Arkansas..................     4

                               WITNESSES

Mr. Christian Lau, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Dynamo 
  AI.............................................................     4
    Prepared Statement...........................................     7
Dr. David Cox, Vice President, AI Models, IBM Director, MIT-IBM 
  Watson AI Lab..................................................    18
    Prepared Statement...........................................    20
Mr. Matthew Reisman, Director, Privacy and Data Policy, Center 
  For Information Policy Leadership..............................    26
    Prepared Statement...........................................    28
Mr. Daniel Gorfine, Founder & CEO, Gattaca Horizons; Former Chief 
  Innovation Officer & Director of LabCFTC.......................    30
    Prepared Statement...........................................    32
Dr. Nicol Turner Lee, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for 
  Technology Innovation, Brookings Institution...................    50
    Prepared Statement...........................................    52

                                APPENDIX

                   MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Warren Davidson:
    Op-ed for the Daily Caller...................................    96
Hon. Maxine Waters:
    America's Credit Unions......................................    99
    The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA)....................   103
    Public Citizen...............................................   111

                 RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD

Written responses to questions for the record from Mr. Christian 
  Lau............................................................   113
Written responses to questions for the record from Dr. David Cox.   116
Written responses to questions for the record from Mr. Matthew 
  Reisman........................................................   118
Written responses to questions for the record from Dr. Nicol 
  Turner Lee.....................................................   123

                              LEGISLATION

H.R. 4801, the Unleashing AI Innovation in Financial Services Act   127
H.R. 2152, the Artificial Intelligence Practices, Logistics, 
  Actions, and Necessities (PLAN) Act............................   148
H.R. 1734, the Preventing Deep Fake Scams Act....................   153

 
                  UNLOCKING THE NEXT GENERATION OF AI
                      IN THE U.S. FINANCIAL SYSTEM
                       FOR CONSUMERS, BUSINESSES,
                          AND COMPETITIVENESS

                              ----------                              


                      Thursday, September 18, 2025

                     U.S. House of Representatives,
                           Committee on Financial Services,
                                                    Washington, DC.

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:12 p.m., in 
room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bryan Steil 
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Steil, Hill, Huizenga, Davidson, 
Rose, Timmons, Nunn, Downing, Haridopolos, Lynch, Waters, 
Foster, Pressley, Torres, Garcia, Pettersen, and Liccardo.
    Chairman Steil. The Subcommittee on Digital Assets, 
Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence will come to 
order.
    Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any time.
    The hearing is titled ``Unlocking the Next Generation of AI 
in the U.S. Financial System for Consumers, Businesses, and 
Competitiveness.''
    Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days 
within which to submit additional material to the chair for 
inclusion in the record.
    I now recognize myself for 4 minutes for an opening 
statement.

    OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BRYAN STEIL, CHAIRMAN OF THE 
   SUBCOMMITTEE ON DIGITAL ASSETS, FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY AND 
        INCLUSION, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM WISCONSIN

    Artificial intelligence is rapidly changing industries 
across the world. Few sectors are more prepared and more 
impacted than financial services. For decades, our financial 
institutions have been at the forefront of development and 
deploying AI technology, from algorithmic trading to machine 
learning systems used in risk management to combating fraud in 
better and faster ways.
    The rise of generative AI represents the next 
transformative step, which could bring new efficiencies, new 
opportunities, and potential new risks to our financial 
markets. This subcommittee has demonstrated strong leadership 
in charting a path forward for transformative technologies, 
including digital assets, most recently through the CLARITY Act 
and the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. 
Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.
    Today, we turn our attention to artificial intelligence, 
examining how it is being deployed in financial markets and 
assessing whether the current regulatory framework is prepared 
to keep pace.
    The United States has long been a hub for financial 
innovation, and we must ensure our policies support responsible 
AI adoption, not stifle it, as seen during the Biden-Harris 
Administration.
    Recently, the Trump Administration released its AI Action 
Plan, which emphasizes American AI leadership across all 
sectors. We must look to how we can enhance American leadership 
and competitiveness in financial technology.
    It is essential that regulations strike the right balance, 
fostering innovation while ensuring investor protection and 
market integrity. Our financial regulators must be cognizant of 
that technology it uses, and Congress must provide the clarity 
to encourage responsible development here at home. It is 
paramount our markets are not left behind in the global race 
for AI leadership.
    We are fortunate to have with us today a panel of esteemed 
experts who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience in 
artificial intelligence and its deployment in the financial 
system. The information we learn today will build upon our 
prior work and assist the subcommittee in shaping policies that 
encourage responsible innovation in financial markets while 
cementing American AI leadership.
    I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today, and 
I look forward to today's discussion.
    I will now recognize the ranking member of the 
subcommittee, Mr. Lynch, for 4 minutes for an opening 
statement.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. STEPHEN LYNCH, RANKING MEMBER OF THE 
   SUBCOMMITTEE ON DIGITAL ASSETS, FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY AND 
      INCLUSION, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM MASSACHUSETTS

    Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 
for your courtesy. I had a vote on a subpoena in another 
hearing and that caused my delay but thank you.
    I want to thank this panel of witnesses for your 
willingness to come before the committee and help us with our 
work.
    This hearing continues this committee's oversight work to 
examine the use of AI in the financial services and housing 
sectors. As evidenced by the final report issued by the 
bipartisan working group that Chairman Hill and I co-chaired 
last year, financial institutions, fintech companies, and even 
financial regulators are already deploying AI to maximize 
operational efficiency and achieve cost reduction across their 
core functions, from personalized customer services and 
consumer lending to fraud detection and financial crime 
monitoring.
    At the same time, the rapid development of AI-based 
technologies has introduced serious risks into the financial 
service space. The Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, 
and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have all expressed 
concerns. Other financial regulators have repeatedly cautioned 
that the development of robust and trustworthy artificial 
intelligence is dependent on our ability to encourage 
innovation that maximizes oversight, consumer protection, data 
privacy, as well as workforce protection and marketplace 
fairness.
    In view of these considerations, I am concerned by the 
Trump Administration's decision to rescind some of the 
commonsense Federal directives that sought to advance the safe 
and responsible development of artificial intelligence. This 
includes the reversal of an executive order directing all 
Federal agencies to enforce existing consumer protection laws 
and to develop additional regulatory safeguards against fraud, 
unintended bias, discrimination and privacy violations only 
when absolutely necessary.
    President Trump subsequently issued his own AI Action Plan, 
a strategy that largely reflects the divergent view that 
consumer protection stands as an impediment to AI innovation, a 
position with which I strongly disagree.
    Regrettably, the AI Action Plan undermines State-level AI 
regulation by requiring Federal agencies to, quote, consider a 
State's regulatory climate, close quote, when allocating 
funding, and to outstrip Federal funds from any State with a 
regulatory framework that it considers burdensome.
    I would note that recent legislation to impose a 10-year 
moratorium on State AI regulation was soundly defeated in the 
U.S. Senate by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 99 to 1.
    The AI Action Plan similarly impedes Federal oversight of 
AI-based systems by directing the Federal Trade Commission to 
stand down from ongoing investigations that unduly burden AI 
innovation. It is the fundamental mission of the Federal Trade 
Commission (FTC) to protect the American public from unfair or 
deceptive business practices.
    President Trump also recently issued an executive order to 
limit Federal procurement of AI large language models to those 
that are developed with ideological neutrality, as reported by 
the independent Brennan Center for Justice.
    Compliance with the order will likely require technology 
companies to degrade model performance and undermine public 
trust in their technology. Not surprisingly, our committee has 
received regular reports from AI stakeholders who have put AI 
development on hold over concerns that their integration of 
fairness metrics will run afoul of the executive order.
    Innovation will also not be well served by the dismantling 
of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a Federal 
agency that has sought to advance the development of 
trustworthy AI systems in financial services through consumer 
protection enforcement actions and regulatory clarity.
    In stark contrast to these actions, the work of our 
bipartisan AI Working Group stems from a genuine commitment by 
members on both sides of the aisle to foster AI innovation in 
the financial services industry while also ensuring that 
regulators are equipped with the authorities and resources 
necessary.
    In closing, to this end I look forward to continuing to 
work on a bipartisan basis with Chairman Hill, Chairman Steil, 
Ranking Member Waters and our committee colleagues to advance 
the U.S. leadership in this important area.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your courtesy once again, and 
I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize the chairman of the full committee, Mr. 
Hill, for 1 minute for an opening statement.

  STATEMENT OF HON. FRENCH HILL, CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON 
    FINANCIAL SERVICES, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARKANSAS

    Chairman Hill. Thank you, Chairman Steil and I appreciate 
our panel being with us.
    AI has, of course, rapidly changed the way Americans live, 
work, and engage with our financial system. Last Congress, we 
explored AI practices at financial services firms, regulators, 
and supervisors. Congressman Bill Foster and I served on 
Speaker Johnson and Minority Leader Jeffries' Bipartisan 
congressional AI Task Force. Ms. Garcia and Mr. Lynch and I had 
an excellent work session at MIT's labs on their research in AI 
and financial services as well.
    In all these efforts, we saw demonstrated how AI has the 
potential to boost efficiency, cut costs, and strengthen the 
tools used to protect consumers from fraud detection to anti-
money laundering but as with any innovation, there are risks. 
AI systems have to be trustworthy, fair, and secure.
    Today we will start that exploration in this Congress on 
how AI, particularly the emerging capabilities of generative 
AI, can reshape our financial system.
    I look forward to the discussion, and I yield back.
    Chairman Steil. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Today we welcome an esteemed panel. We welcome the 
testimony of Dr. David Cox, vice president of AI Models at IBM 
Research; Dr. Christian Lau, co-founder and president of Dynamo 
AI; Mr. Matthew Reisman, director of privacy and data 
collection at the Center for Information Policy Leadership; and 
Daniel Gorfine, CEO of Gattaca Horizons LLC; as well as Dr. 
Nicol Turner Lee, senior fellow and director of the Center for 
Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution.
    We thank each of you for taking your time to be here. Each 
of you will be recognized for 5 minutes to give an oral 
presentation of your testimony. Without objection, your written 
statements will be made part of the record.
    Dr. Lau, you are now recognized for 5 minutes for your oral 
remarks.

   STATEMENT OF CHRISTIAN LAU, CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF PRODUCT 
                       OFFICER, DYNAMO AI

    Mr. Lau. Chairman Steil, Ranking Member Lynch, members of 
the subcommittee, and staff, I thank you for inviting me to 
testify today, and I am honored to participate in discussions 
focused on advancing AI across the financial services 
ecosystem.
    In 2021, I founded Dynamo AI alongside my co-founder and 
CEO, Vaikkunth Mugunthan, during our Ph.D.s at MIT. We started 
off as a small group of researchers deeply interested in AI but 
also keenly aware that AI risks pose fundamental challenges to 
real world adoption.
    Since starting as a small group of Ph.D.s, we quickly found 
ourselves working hand in hand with some of the largest 
financial institutions, the most cutting-edge financial 
technology (fintech) companies, as well as regional banks 
across America to help them navigate compliance and governance 
challenges posed by AI.
    Today, we not only provide the security and governance 
layer for many of the largest deployments of AI in banking, but 
we are also now proudly backed by 40 of the top 100 U.S. 
financial institutions and a consortium of community banks 
across America.
    Our mission has always been to help enterprises navigate 
complex regulatory environments, particularly where legal and 
compliance requirements pose open technology challenges that 
institutions struggle to solve. We found that, when faced with 
new technology regulations or internal compliance requirements 
around new technologies, enterprises are often left paralyzed, 
asking themselves not only how do I comply with these new 
requirements but is it even technically possible for us to 
comply with these new requirements. Nowhere do we see this to 
be more prevalent than with the struggles of financial 
institutions striving to adopt AI.
    Every day, our team has the ability and opportunity to 
witness exciting new AI proof of concepts that bring new 
efficiencies to the bank but for every new exciting AI proof of 
concept that we encounter, we also see another AI proof of 
concept fail to make it into production and deliver meaningful 
value. We commonly see that these projects fail not because the 
underlying AI technology cannot deliver but, rather, because 
financial institutions struggle to answer open questions about 
managing AI risk in heavily regulated, high-impact, and 
consequential environments.
    Some common and, quite frankly, sensible questions about AI 
risk include: What new security and data leakage risks does AI 
bring to my organization? As we hand over more autonomy to AI 
agents, how can we enable those agents to comply with 
established banking protocol and procedure when carrying out 
tasks and what happens when an AI assistant inevitably 
hallucinates or fabricates facts in its response?
    While financial institutions often struggle to answer these 
questions, these are not intractable problems. At Dynamo, we 
work with a multitude of financial institutions to establish 
effective AI risk management that accelerates rather than 
blocks their AI transformation.
    To truly manage these new risks and unleash AI innovation, 
financial institutions and regulators must embrace technology 
solutions that can help risk and compliance teams scale their 
oversight, including controls like AI guardrails, red-teaming 
evaluations, and auditability over AI usage.
    Importantly, the AI landscape is evolving at breakneck 
speed, and regulators and policymakers need to adopt governing 
frameworks that keep up with the pace of innovation, rather 
than falling behind on new opportunities and risks.
    Regulators should expand the use of AI sandboxes, as called 
for in the administration's AI Action Plan and the bipartisan 
H.R. 4801, to not only enable technology teams to experiment 
with AI on high-impact use cases but also bring leading 
evaluation and red-teaming technology to rigorously test these 
experimental AI against real world risks.
    Drawing on global examples, such as Singapore's successful 
sandbox programs, the U.S. can strengthen competitiveness while 
promoting secure and compliant AI.
    Across financial institutions and governing bodies that we 
speak to every day, we are starting to see comprehensive AI 
risk management take shape. We believe that this will be key to 
ushering a new and exciting era of advancement for the 
industry.
    On behalf of the entire team at Dynamo AI, thank you for 
the opportunity to testify, and I welcome the opportunity to 
work with the subcommittee to create a competitive, secure, and 
compliant AI ecosystem within financial services.
    Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lau follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Steil. Thank you very much.
    Dr. David Cox, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

    STATEMENT OF DAVID COX, VICE PRESIDENT, AI MODELS; IBM 
                DIRECTOR, MIT-IBM WATSON AI LAB

    Mr. Cox. Chairman Steil, Ranking Member Lynch, and 
distinguished members of this committee, thank you for the 
opportunity to testify. My name is David Cox, and I serve as 
the vice president for AI Models at IBM Research and the IBM 
director of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab.
    While the excitement around AI has intensified in recent 
years, artificial intelligence has fascinated researchers for 
many decades. To give you a sense of our historical place in 
this, IBM has been on the vanguard of this ongoing revolution 
from the very beginning, when an IBM researcher co-authored the 
proposal for the 1956 workshop, Dartmouth conference, that 
coined the term ``artificial intelligence'' and gave the field 
its name.
    IBM also has a long history of helping enterprises, 
including in the financial sector, use artificial intelligence 
technologies to unlock business value, and doing so in ways 
that are responsible and engender trust.
    Our work spans a broad spectrum, from helping to identify 
appropriate use cases, to providing tooling to govern both the 
development and deployment of AI systems, to inventing new 
technologies for trustworthy AI.
    From the start, IBM has tested AI internally before 
offering it to others, an approach we call Client Zero. By 
deploying AI internally, we ensure our models are stress tested 
in the real world environments before they ever reach clients.
    For example, by leveraging IBM's watsonx.ai and automation 
tools, we help to augment the skills of our own workforce by 
eliminating repetitive tasks. This has enabled our employees to 
focus on more challenging, rewarding, and impactful work with 
the time they save.
    For the financial industry, the implications of AI, 
particularly generative AI and large language models, are 
transformative. Learning Management System (LMS) are not merely 
chatbots, they are multifunctional tools that can be adapted 
across a wide range of financial services use cases. These 
opportunities come with challenges. Large models consume 
enormous computing resources, raising both costs and concerns 
about energy use.
    Transparency is vital. Enterprises and regulators must 
understand the provenance and quality of the data underlying 
deployed systems. Security is also paramount as organizations 
seek to safeguard sensitive information when using cloud-based 
systems but perhaps the greatest risk is hesitation. If 
industry delays too long, consumers and the U.S. economy may 
miss out on the early benefits of adoption.
    Responsible governance is not a break on innovation. It is 
a mechanism that ensures that innovation can be deployed 
securely and sustainably.
    In regulated environments, firms must understand exactly 
what data underpins their models and be able to audit those 
systems over time. That is why IBM's enterprise AI efforts are 
grounded in three principles: open, trusted, and secure.
    Open-source AI strengthens transparency, produces 
dependence on proprietary vendors, and enhances U.S. 
competitiveness. Trust is built through transparency and data 
curation, training processes, and lineage between models and 
data. Finally, security must be embedded throughout the AI life 
cycle, from data collection to deployment, backed by continuous 
oversight rather than reactive compliance.
    With this in mind, I urge policymakers to support open 
ecosystems, to regulate applications rather than technologies 
in the abstract, and to promote transparency requirements that 
allow enterprises and regulators alike to test models, evaluate 
accuracy, and understand safeguards. These steps will foster an 
environment where innovation can thrive responsibly.
    AI is not about replacing people but augmenting them. It is 
about empowering professionals, enriching consumers, and 
expanding opportunity. By embracing openness, insisting on 
transparency, and embedding security, we can ensure that AI 
strengthens both the financial system and America's global 
competitiveness.
    Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Cox follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Steil. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Reisman, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

   STATEMENT OF MATTHEW REISMAN, DIRECTOR, PRIVACY AND DATA 
        POLICY, CENTER FOR INFORMATION POLICY LEADERSHIP

    Mr. Reisman. Thank you, Chairman Steil, Ranking Member 
Lynch, and members of the subcommittee, for the opportunity to 
speak with you today.
    I am Matthew Reisman, director of Privacy and Data Policy 
at the Center for Information Policy Leadership, or CIPL, a 
data and privacy policy think tank within the Hunton law firm, 
whose mission is to advance best practices for the responsible 
and beneficial use of data. CIPL facilitates constructive 
engagement between business leaders, data governance experts, 
regulators, and policymakers around the world.
    AI plays a critical role in the financial services 
industry, as this committee documented well in the staff report 
of its bipartisan Working Group on Artificial Intelligence. For 
years, machine learning has strengthened financial services 
institutions' ability to combat fraud, provide richer and more 
tailored services to existing customers, and extend services to 
new ones. More recently, generative AI has boosted productivity 
across functions, from software development to customer service 
and we are now in the early days of agentic AI, which shows 
promise for enhancing the experiences of businesses and 
customers alike. Potential applications are extensive, from 
streamlining Know Your Customer processes, to back-office 
operations like payroll and invoicing, to online banking and 
agentic commerce.
    AI's use in financial services also carries risks to 
consumers, institutions, and the financial system. The 
bipartisan staff report documents these risks well. Agentic AI 
may accentuate some risks while at the same time enhancing risk 
management capabilities in areas such as privacy and 
cybersecurity.
    To secure the advantages of AI within the financial system, 
we have three broad sets of recommendations:
    First, with respect to regulation, pursue a risk-based 
approach that focuses on the outcomes to be achieved. Avoid 
overly prescriptive measures, build upon existing foundations, 
including regulations, guidance, and standards that are already 
in place. When necessary, clarify or adapt their application to 
emerging technologies. Consider risks and benefits in equal 
measure. Incentivize organizations to adopt accountable 
practices. Build trust through meaningful transparency. CIPL 
has long underscored that these concepts of organizational 
accountability are central to smart governance of data and 
technology.
    Second, enable the responsible use of data for model 
training and development. To function safely, effectively, and 
fairly, models must be trained and tested using rich datasets. 
Regulators should apply data protection principles in ways that 
ensure the quality of AI systems while preserving individuals' 
privacy. Privacy-enhancing technologies, or PETs, can reduce 
risks associated with the use of personal data. Examples 
include synthetic data, which is artificial data that mimics 
the value of real world data, and differential privacy, where 
random noise is added to datasets to prevent identification of 
any individual's data. Policymakers should encourage continued 
research on and use of PETs.
    Third, engage in cooperative dialog among regulators, 
technologists, and industry. As AI continues to evolve rapidly, 
stakeholders must learn from each other. Fostering such 
exchanges is the heart of CIPL's mission, and regulatory 
sandboxes offer an invaluable avenue for such dialog. Numerous 
jurisdictions have established regulatory sandboxes over the 
past decade, from the U.K. to Singapore to U.S. States, like 
North Carolina and Delaware. We commend steps to promote 
sandboxes under America's AI Action Plan, the proposed 
bipartisan, bicameral Unleashing IA Innovation and Financial 
Services Act, and other proposed legislation.
    CIPL has published numerous papers on the aforementioned 
topics and is continuing our research on them.
    We look forward to the discussion today and to supporting 
your efforts to secure the benefits of AI and financial 
services for everyone. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Reisman follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Steil. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Gorfine, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.

 STATEMENT OF DANIEL GORFINE, FOUNDER & CEO, GATTACA HORIZONS; 
     FORMER CHIEF INNOVATION OFFICER & DIRECTOR OF LABCFTC

    Mr. Gorfine. Thank you, Chairman Steil, Ranking Member 
Lynch, and members of the subcommittee, for the opportunity to 
testify before you today.
    I am the founder and CEO of Gattaca Horizons, an adjunct 
professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, and the 
former chief innovation officer at the U.S. Commodity Futures 
Trading Commission (CFTC).
    Today's topic on unlocking the next generation of AI in our 
financial system is critically important. The U.S. holds 
significant competitive and first mover advantages, and we must 
foster continued development through thoughtful policy 
approaches. AI presents tremendous opportunities to further 
expand access, lower costs, and increase efficiencies and 
competitiveness while also enhancing compliance and regulatory 
oversight.
    To level set, it is important to recognize that AI and 
financial services are not new. It is part of a steady 
progression of automation that began decades ago. Today, recent 
advances in generative AI and agentic AI are creating new 
possibilities, ranging from generating code and new content to 
planning and executing complex tasks.
    Responsibly developed AI is, indeed, already yielding 
tremendous benefits. AI can provide more accurate and efficient 
decisionmaking, detect patterns that traditional approaches 
would miss, help regulators keep pace with digital markets, and 
promote financial inclusion by unlocking credit for 
historically underserved populations. It is further enhancing 
customer service, helping to identify patterns of financial 
crime and market manipulation, and making financial advice more 
accessible and lower cost for Americans.
    As with any area of innovation, however, there are risks 
associated with AI, including the potential for perpetuating 
bias, relying on poor quality data, failing to operate as 
expected, and advancing fraud and scams. The mere speculative 
potential or fear of future harm, however, should not broadly 
block development of AI, including by those small firms and 
community banks seeking to remain competitive in an 
increasingly digital economy.
    To this end, as a key guiding principle, I would encourage 
everyone to assess new AI-based models on their ability to 
improve off of a highly imperfect status quo. This principle 
should apply across AI applications, since a singular focus on 
risk can blind us to the greater benefits as compared to legacy 
approaches.
    With respect to existing policy frameworks, the financial 
services industry is well-equipped to manage new technologies 
and should be a model for other sectors. For decades, a robust 
technology-neutral regulatory framework has governed the 
adoption of emerging technologies.
    For example, consumer protection laws bar discrimination in 
lending, whether the decision is made by a human or by an 
algorithm. In our capital markets, rules against fraud and 
manipulation, along with circuit breaker technologies, help to 
mitigate risks related to potential AI-driven trading activity 
and our financial regulators have long provided robust risk 
management guidance, principles, and frameworks that address 
model IT third-party and enterprise risks.
    The overarching framework to ensure safe and responsible 
adoption of AI is in place. The challenge now is thoughtful 
application through sound, informed, and consistent regulation.
    To ensure the U.S. maintains its leadership and 
competitiveness, I accordingly offer five recommendations:
    First, regulators must support, not block, responsible AI 
adoption. We often hear that innovation is blocked by 
regulators at the examination and supervisory levels due to 
vague expectations and endless inquiries that lack clear paths 
to compliance. Examiners should be well-versed in the benefits 
and risks of AI and provide the marketplace with clear 
expectations.
    Second, we must ensure financial regulators have the in-
house expertise and tools to keep pace with technology. A 
recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found a 
significant lack of technology skills at Federal financial 
regulators, which is why codifying innovation offices and 
equipping regulators with their own AI expertise, tools, and 
capabilities are essential for effective oversight.
    Third, Congress should establish a Federal data privacy 
framework and ensure open access to quality permissioned 
financial data. The quality of AI model outputs is inherently 
tied to the quality of data inputs. Congress should work to 
establish a national framework that governs data privacy and 
ensures that consumers have control over how their data is 
being shared and used.
    Fourth, Congress should prevent State laws from undermining 
Federal financial regulatory frameworks. Given the national 
nature of AI development and its application in the well-
regulated financial services industry, a patchwork of State 
laws can create conflict, ambiguity, and confusion.
    Finally, regulators should further clarify risk management 
frameworks and promote the value of well-crafted standards. 
This includes making clear that the mere use of AI, even GenAI 
or agentic AI, does not inherently make an activity higher 
risk. Regulators can further help their efforts to keep pace 
with technological change by supporting well-crafted industry 
standards through regulatory recognition and safe harbors.
    Thank you, and I am happy to answer any questions you may 
have.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Gorfine follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Steil. Thank you very much.
    We now recognize Nicol Turner Lee for 5 minutes.

  STATEMENT OF NICOL TURNER LEE, SENIOR FELLOW AND DIRECTOR, 
    CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

    Ms. Turner Lee. Thank you, Chairman Steil, Ranking Member 
Lynch, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you 
for this invitation to testify on the use of AI in the 
financial sector.
    My name is Dr. Nicol Turner Lee. I am a director of the 
Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution, 
and I am also the co-author of a report that was done on AI in 
the global markets by the CFTC.
    Artificial intelligence brings a variety of opportunities 
to the financial sector, and for years it has been used in 
banking, fraud detection, mortgage applications, credit 
underwriting, and data analytics. Many of these use cases are 
promising, offering the potential for greater accessibility and 
improved customer service, while others may introduce 
challenges, including concerns about racial bias and 
discrimination.
    Given that the financial services industry is one of the 
country's most highly regulated ones, adoption and use of AI 
requires careful review. Without such oversight, risks abound 
that can undermine consumers' ability to be economically 
resilient, especially under changing economic conditions. 
Further, inaccurate or discriminatory information that is used 
to train AI models can put marginalized populations at even 
greater risk, threatening to widen the racial wealth gap, limit 
access to home ownership, credit, and other financial 
transactions. In other words, when algorithms make poor 
decisions, the quality of life for Black and Brown communities, 
seniors, and even some of us are placed in reverse.
    For these and other reasons, Congress must continue to 
foster responsible and ethical use in the financial regulation 
sector by providing safeguards that protect consumers from AI 
risks now and reinforce algorithmic accountability, safety, and 
security, especially when we look at incidents of fraud.
    Congress can also safeguard consumers from both the 
unintended and intended consequences through legislation, which 
starts with comprehensive national privacy standards and 
reinforcing the jurisdiction of independent Federal agencies 
and State attorneys general, who enforce consumer protection 
regulations in the age of AI.
    For example, the former director of the Consumer Financial 
Protection Bureau clarified that algorithmic decisionmaking is 
held to the same standards as human decisionmaking. The 
Department of Justice, the Department of Housing and Urban 
Development, these agencies also previously released documents 
stating the compliance with many of the provisions that apply 
to either tenant screening or fairness overall.
    But recent actions taken to defund and compromise the 
independence of Federal agencies like the CFPB, like the 
Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which have oversight over 
deceptive consumer practices, can have major implications on 
protecting consumers from the opaque technology of AI.
    State and State attorneys general are critical in enforcing 
those protections, but challenges to their State rights and 
laws are not productive. Even with the rejection of a 10-year 
moratorium on States' ability to develop their own laws, the 
current AI Action Plan still suggests that AI-related funds 
should not go to those with burdensome AI regulations.
    In the absence of a national framework, States must 
continue to protect the millions of seniors, children, 
marginalized populations, and even farmers who are being 
barraged by algorithmic discrimination, deepfakes, and other 
malicious attacks on their financial well-being.
    Recent proposals from legislators seek to establish 
regulatory sandboxes for AI developers where companies can 
apply for waivers or modifications but without strong 
regulatory or enforcement consequences, companies will have 
another avenue to exploit the personal information and 
behaviors of consumers.
    As my Brookings colleague Aaron Klein suggests, we should 
be creating more greenhouses, which allow for more transparency 
and sunlight into these processes, promoting collaborative 
partnerships between business, government, and consumers, to 
see where issues arise and how the three of them can foster 
trust with one another. These approaches can also assist in 
anti-bias discrimination, which is also very much imperative to 
building trust.
    I would like to just close with five proposals for members 
of this committee to consider as we embark on the inquiry 
today.
    Ensure that the industry is compliant with existing legal 
statutes and remedies which reinforce algorithmic 
accountability. The financial sector is already regulated by 
numerous Federal and State organizations. It is imperative that 
it stay that way, and that they also comply with acts like the 
Fair Credit Reporting Act and others to seek the prevention of 
discriminatory results.
    Mandate transparency guidelines and full disclosure for all 
consumers. Companies need to tell people publicly when they are 
using AI to make decisions. Those matter outputs should be 
explainable and accurate and reliable.
    Encourage, not discourage, responsible and ethical 
development of financial models. Innovation and regulation can 
be complementary, and I think that is to the benefit, again, of 
those greenhouses, which show transparency in the ideas and 
processes that we embrace in this area.
    Brace for the adoption of agentic AI but do the first two. 
Make sure there is consumer protection in place that we are 
poised to benefit from the autonomous nature of agentic AI, but 
we still have firm oversight.
    Finally I would say, invest in AI financial literacy 
programs so that consumers know how this industry and sector is 
evolving.
    These and other questions I place before this committee, 
and I look forward to your questions and collaboration.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. Turner Lee follows:]
   [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Steil. Thank you very much, Dr. Turner Lee.
    We will now turn to member questions. I will recognize 
myself for 5 minutes for questioning.
    I want to start with you, Dr. Cox, if I can. Let us do a 
real quick stage setting. Algorithms have been utilized in the 
financial services space since the 1980s, but we have now seen 
an explosive investment into AI. What is sparking this massive 
investment, in a short answer?
    Mr. Cox. Yes. I think what is sparking this massive 
excitement and investment is that this technology is general 
purpose in a way that previous technologies have not been. So 
there is a lot of work to train a system for, and now the same 
system can be used in many different settings.
    Chairman Steil. And it can pull through massive datasets in 
a way that was not possible in the 1980s.
    Mr. Cox. Absolutely.
    Chairman Steil. Although in the 1980s as well as today, 
there is already a regulatory framework in place, fair?
    Mr. Cox. Yes.
    Chairman Steil. Okay. Let me continue this. I want to come 
over to you, Mr. Gorfine, if I can. We are faced with something 
new as we focus on kind of risks and threats. The human mind is 
really good at thinking about what the risks are. It is not as 
good at thinking about the potential upside.
    If we think about what the Biden Administration did, they 
really took an attitude to the extreme in its handling of 
artificial intelligence. Fortunately, President Trump has 
reversed course on this, issuing Executive Order 14179, 
Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI, and releasing 
America's AI Action Plan in July 2025.
    So this approach can really accelerate AI development 
through a try-first approach that removes some of the red tape 
and onerous regulations.
    I want to come to you, Mr. Gorfine. In your opinion, how 
can the AI Action Plan--or how is the AI Action Plan an 
improvement over the previous administration's AI approach?
    Mr. Gorfine. Thank you. Thank you for the question.
    I think that what we are seeing right now is an effort to 
look where there is existing regulation in place and taking an 
approach of letting us allow this to develop so we can actually 
identify risks and determine whether anything more is needed.
    I think, as many of us have outlined, the financial 
services industry is a heavily regulated industry. We have 
existing laws, regulations, and guidance that have been able to 
adapt and incorporate emerging technologies for decades. There 
are some approaches, including around the world, that are 
looking to do things kind of preemptively and in a more 
prescriptive fashion verse an approach where we say, hey, we 
have this scaffolding in place, we have principles in place to 
guide adoption of technologies in a responsible way, let us 
allow this to actually grow and develop.
    I think it is critically important that the U.S. does 
remain the global leader in AI, including in the financial 
services context. So the environment seems set to unleash that.
    Chairman Steil. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Reisman, I want to build on what Mr. Gorfine just said. 
In particular, let us dive into data privacy laws, something 
that is heavily regulated in the financial services space, but 
with the advent of AI, there are additional concerns that are 
coming online.
    So as financial services firms are increasingly deploying 
AI in areas like lending, fraud detection, customer services, 
what role will Americans' personal financial data play, and how 
do we use AI to implicate existing data privacy laws? Of 
course, the logical follow up would be, what should we be 
looking at from an AI perspective as it relates to data 
privacy?
    Mr. Reisman. Thank you very much for this important 
question.
    It has been heartening to me to hear how much we have 
talked about data privacy today, because I think what we would 
say is that a sound data privacy framework is a very important 
foundation for the development of AI and for America's AI 
leadership. I think data is the raw material on which 
artificial intelligence depends, and AI model developers depend 
on having rich datasets to develop high-quality models.
    One thing I think that often gets put into the discussion 
is the idea of a binary between privacy or innovation, and we 
would absolutely say it is privacy and innovation, and privacy 
is an enabler. So a good data privacy law with modern 
interpretation holds onto classic principles we have had for 
decades in privacy law but allows for flexible use of data for 
purposes such as model training and development.
    Chairman Steil. So building on what you are saying, do you 
believe that we can regulate and address AI under the current 
regulatory framework or do you need a new regulatory framework, 
which has been proposed by some?
    Mr. Reisman. What I would say is that, as a first step, we 
should look at the framework that we have, look at it closely--
and a lot of the elements, as has already been discussed today, 
are there--and try and be very precise about identifying any 
lacuna but first, let us look at what we have.
    Chairman Steil. Dr. Cox, you are nodding. You agree that we 
can in many ways regulate AI through the existing framework?
    Mr. Cox. I think, certainly, the starting place should be 
what are the risks, what are the outcomes that you are trying 
to govern and control, and then any modifications that come for 
the technology can come from there but starting fresh.
    Chairman Steil. Thank you very much. I agree.
    I yield back.
    I will now recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. 
Lynch, who is also the ranking member of this subcommittee. You 
are now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    This morning, a number of us had a meeting with Jack Clark, 
the co-founder and head of Policy at Anthropic and it was, I 
think, enlightening to hear him say how, for Anthropic, that 
the investment, the advancements, the deployment of AI had 
exceeded by about 5 years their expectations of the development 
and advance of AI, even based on the projections that they made 
3 years ago. They said, we are 5 years beyond where we thought 
we would be today.
    I just point to the velocity of change here in this sector 
and what a problem it creates up here, in terms of trying to 
regulate that and protect markets as well as protecting 
consumers.
    I know a couple of you have mentioned the sandbox model. 
Ms. Turner Lee, the Singapore model--and we actually had a 
congressional delegation from this committee go to Singapore 
and kind of review the model that they had for their sandbox 
back when they were doing fintech, a fintech sandbox and a 
crypto sandbox.
    So, interestingly enough, their sandbox has an ethical 
framework which begins with a principles-based approach so that 
there are elements of fairness and accountability, inclusivity, 
and it sets an ethical foundation for all AI projects. It has a 
bias mitigation element to their sandbox and mitigates bias in 
those AI systems, and developers are encouraged to assess their 
algorithms for potential discrimination.
    There are data transparency practices that must be complied 
with. Organizations must be clear about how data is collected, 
processed, and shared--explainability requirements within their 
sandbox model. So they must ensure that their AI systems can 
provide understandable justifications for their decisionmaking.
    There is also very strong stakeholder engagement, 
encouraging a wide range of stakeholders, and massive user 
privacy protections that are very important not only for 
Singapore but globally and certainly for the United States as 
well.
    There are regular reviews and audits of that sandbox 
process--sandbox process among these participants in the 
sandbox, as well as blueprints and guidelines and knowledge 
sharing.
    Is that the formula that we should use if we are going to 
go--I know the full committee chairman has an idea about 
sandboxes and we are going back and forth, he and I, about, 
what that should look like.
    I would just like to get your feedback. You have touched on 
a lot of the sensitive issues, and I would like to hear you 
extrapolate a little bit more.
    Ms. Turner Lee. Thank you so much for that question.
    I mean, I am a fan of sandboxes. I wrote a paper in 2018, 
when we were just beginning this bubble, on what algorithms 
were going to do when it came to consumers and regulatory 
sandboxes are a great way to experiment. In fact, here in the 
United States, we have used sandboxes to cultivate the fintech 
marketplace but because of the velocity of speed in which AI is 
gathering our personal information, the velocity in which we 
are going into transformational models where we cannot 
determine the beginning and the end. When we actually deploy a 
sandbox model in this day and age, it is important to have many 
of those verbals that the Singapore Government has put into 
place.
    It allows for accountability, continuous monitoring, 
transparency, and it also allows us to ensure that consumers 
are baked into the process, as opposed to providing waivers and 
exceptions to companies to experiment and then come back and 
tell us how it is all going to work, which is the current model 
from which we exercise right now when it comes to AI.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you. One problem that I noticed in the 
Singapore model was the number of participants was limited, so 
it never scaled up. Some of the problems that we see with AI is 
when you get that scaleability.
    Is there a way for us to--I know the auditing and review 
after the sandbox is ongoing, but is there any way we can sort 
of make sure that scaleability effect is implemented inside of 
a sandbox?
    Ms. Turner Lee. Well, I think one of the areas in which 
many of us who have fought for consumer protections are 
interested in----
    Chairman Steil. The gentleman's time is--I will ask you to 
write that for the record----
    Ms. Turner Lee. No problem.
    Chairman Steil [continuing]. cognizant of the time.
    The gentleman yields, and the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. 
Huizenga, who is also the vice chair of the full committee, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Huizenga. Thank you, Chairman Steil.
    Dr. Lau, we are talking about sandboxes. Do you have 
anything? I know you have been commenting on this in the past. 
Do you have any additional thoughts that you would like to----
    Mr. Lau. Definitely. We are actually participants in the 
Singapore AI sandbox that they have set up, the AI Verify 
Foundation. It has actually been working exceedingly well, in 
the sense that these types of government agencies need to bring 
the latest technologies to actually evaluate the latest risks 
that are emerging with AI agents and new AI technologies.
    So by bringing in innovative technologies to do that type 
of red teaming and testing, they are able to stay ahead. Think 
about here in the U.S., where we have regulatory agencies that 
are still being educated about the technology, whereas in 
Singapore they are able to unleash a lot more in terms of AI 
potential through bringing in new technology to test and 
evaluate it. I think there are a lot of benefits there and also 
to the point that Congressman Lynch mentioned around 
scaleability, red teaming is a very labor-intensive problem, 
right. So, you have thousands of tests that enterprises have to 
perform. If the Federal agencies can provide more guidance and 
tooling around that, it is going to accelerate AI adoption.
    Mr. Huizenga. Okay. That is helpful. Thank you.
    Staying with you here, we often hear of an AI arms race 
with China that, if lost, would threaten U.S. national security 
and the United States global economic dominance.
    In your opinion, is the United States currently--how are we 
currently faring, I guess, in this arms race? Are we failing at 
it? If so, how? More importantly, how can Congress and the U.S. 
Government writ large ensure that the United States outpaces 
China in the AI space?
    Mr. Lau. I think there have been different paradigms 
emerging here. One is where you have a Federal Government that 
can choose and pick and invest in winners of the space versus 
creating an open marketplace where different, say, large 
language model providers or vendors can compete within this 
marketplace, right.
    I think what we are seeing when we talk to folks within the 
Department of Defense (DOD), or Department of War now, we see 
actually a movement toward opening up these marketplaces where 
many different vendors can compete and the best solution rises 
to the top.
    Again, I will move back. We are actually evaluating which 
are the best solutions for use cases that is going to drive 
America's national security interests. It really comes down to 
can we do the right evaluation of those large language model 
providers or vendors.
    So combining open marketplaces that foster innovation allow 
different folks to compete, and then we get to choose the best 
ones for our use cases. It is absolutely essential here for us 
to be competitive in this arms race you are talking about.
    Mr. Huizenga. By the way, I deeply appreciate how you are 
succinctly wrapping up some very complicated and detailed 
things and allowing me 2 minutes yet to ask other questions. 
That is important up here when we only get 5 minutes.
    Mr. Gorfine, I want to talk a little bit about the impact 
of U.S. regulation and how it may threaten the use of AI in the 
financial services space. We had the Securities and Exchange 
Commission's (SEC's) predictive data analytics proposal under 
the Gensler SEC, which I believe would have had some 
significant impact.
    Are there other things like that we need to make sure that 
we are aware of and avoiding?
    Mr. Gorfine. Yes. I appreciate you raising the predictive 
data analytics rule. I mean, that was rescinded and I think 
that was an example of a non----
    Mr. Huizenga. Rightly so. Rightly so. As we saw with that 
SEC chair, he was expansive in his pursuit of covering every 
territory he possibly could.
    Mr. Gorfine. Right. I would agree it was not technology-
neutral, and that should be kind of a guiding principle. It had 
incredibly broad----
    Mr. Huizenga. So it should be tech-neutral.
    Mr. Gorfine. Absolutely should be technology-neutral and 
importantly, like the soft power too and the way that 
regulators communicate to the marketplace is important. So what 
the----
    Mr. Huizenga. Oh, in other words, you do not want to be 
pounded into the ground and threatened with being put out of 
business? That does not foster innovation?
    Mr. Gorfine. That can be a challenge.
    Mr. Huizenga. Allow the sarcasm to be mine.
    Mr. Gorfine. That can certainly be a challenging 
environment, I think, especially when you are talking about 
smaller firms. When I think about regulatory messaging, it is 
the small firms, it is the community banks that do not have 
large armies of compliance teams that are able to parse certain 
types of messaging that comes from regulators. So it can serve 
as a big deterrent to adoption.
    Mr. Huizenga. In the last 30 seconds, how can these smaller 
community financial--you mentioned community banks or credit 
unions. How can they use AI to compete?
    Mr. Gorfine. Well, so I am a big believer--and I say this 
in my written testimony--in standard setting organizations. 
Like, industry-driven standards that regulators can effectively 
recognize or even create safe hardware would allow small firms 
to know that, if you are compliant with these best practices or 
standards, that is, from a diligence perspective, a route you 
can pursue. I think that exploring those types of models in the 
U.S. is going to be critically important as--I am out of time.
    Mr. Huizenga. I yield back. Thank you.
    Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
    The gentleman from Illinois, Dr. Foster, the ranking member 
of the Financial Institutions Subcommittee, is recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to our witnesses.
    I guess Mr. Reisman and maybe others have mentioned the 
importance of privacy enhancement techniques. Several years ago 
when I was chairing the AI Task Force on this committee, we had 
dragged in a witness to talk about homomorphic encryption and 
some of the differential privacy techniques and I noticed just 
recently--and it was clear back then that these were not ready 
for prime time. There was a huge penalty for performance, and 
the privacy was not actually that great.
    I noticed recently Google just announced this Google Vault 
Gemini, which sounds like they are actually implementing 
training with differential privacy.
    So I was wondering if anyone on the committee could say 
something about are these techniques really ready for prime 
time, and is there the possibility of a regulatory safe harbor 
for firms that commit to using high-quality differential 
privacy type tools?
    Mr. Reisman. Thank you for the question.
    It has been quite extraordinary to see the progress on 
privacy enhancing technologies over just the last few years. I 
think you are right that not so long ago many of them were not 
ready for prime time, but the curve has been quite steep in 
terms of many of them becoming much more feasible.
    Part of it is that many privacy enhancing technologies are 
compute-intensive, but our computing power collectively is 
growing a lot stronger, so we are able to handle that. I think 
there was also a sense that a lot of them were complex and 
maybe out of reach, especially for smaller companies.
    There is a whole ecosystem now of expert companies that are 
able to consult and offer what you might call off-the-shelf 
privacy enhancing technologies, to make them much more 
available much more broadly. So----
    Mr. Foster. It would make sandboxes easier to implement.
    Any other sort of comments on the state-of-the-art? Would 
anyone disagree that this is something that is pretty promising 
at this point?
    Mr. Cox. Things like fully homomorphic encryption provide 
very strong guarantees and you are correct that they are slower 
than conventional computing, but the leaps and bounds that they 
are making in that technology, it is orders of magnitude, 
thousand times better. Every time I turn around, it has gotten 
better.
    So I think that is moving very fast, and the harbor is 
going to ultimately start to close that gap as well. So I think 
we are going to benefit from that wave.
    Mr. Foster. That could be a key component to a safe sandbox 
in a lot of these things.
    Mr. Cox. Absolutely.
    Mr. Foster. Relating to one of the things we struggle with 
is the small bank versus large bank, trying to level the 
playing field if we can and it is one of the things that AI can 
potentially help us with.
    Soon all of us will have in our pocket the best team of 
lawyers that has ever been assembled. So it means if you ever 
get in a fight with a billionaire, a legal fight, the 
billionaire will not be able to get a better legal team than 
you have essentially for free.
    Now, similarly, a small bank should, through AI, be able to 
have access to a really good AI risk adviser, a team of risk 
adviser AIs, so that even if it is a pretty small bank, this 
team will know every way that any bank has failed in the 
history of this country and just have a tremendous amount of 
knowledge and make it easier to operate a small bank.
    Similarly, regulations, regulatory technology (RegTech), I 
think, is another real advantage. I did an interesting 
experiment a couple weeks ago where I said, okay, Claude, or 
whoever I was using, give me the balance sheets for three banks 
that have just failed for typical reasons, and it just knocked 
it out of the park.
    Then I said, now give us a resolution plan for each of 
those three and it was great. I mean, it just said, okay, in 
this case set up a bridge bank. In this case, try to merge it. 
In this case, just liquidate it. They were very sophisticated 
things, and I was impressed.
    I was wondering if any of you have a feeling for whether 
that is really kind of the future of regulation, that even 
small banks have all of their records electronic.
    If there was a standard interface for the accounting 
software that gets run that could report up to risk management 
and to the regulators, you could have real-time stress testing 
against dozens of scenarios every single night for the smallest 
bank, and that would be a real leveler.
    Any thoughts? Is there a reason why things cannot evolve in 
that direction?
    Dr. Lau.
    Mr. Lau. Thank you. Yes, certainly. We work with a lot of 
community banks and regional banks, backed by a number of them 
and we see this every day, right. So this new AI technology can 
empower them to automate or streamline a lot of these 
compliance work flows that are very manually intensive that 
they just do not have staffing to do, but also, as you 
mentioned, unlock really new types of auditing and risk 
controls, so 24-hour continuous monitoring and observability 
into certain types of work flows that are highly regulated. 
That is all really exciting and actually being realized/
materialized today across a lot of these smaller banks but I 
would say on the flip side, you also want to make sure that as 
these AI technologies enter into these regulated work flows, 
they are also having the right guardrails in place and they are 
being used for those work flows appropriately and aligning them 
with proper bank policies and procedures. So that is something 
that actually requires technical expertise.
    Chairman Steil. The gentleman's time is expired. We ask you 
to complete that in writing.
    The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Davidson, who is also the 
chair of the Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit 
Finance, and International Financial Institutions, is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Davidson. Thank you, Chairman.
    Clearly, AI represents a transformative force, one that can 
exponentially enhance productivity, bolster our financial 
system's global edge, and it will no doubt influence our 
culture. Technology never exists in a vacuum, and I have long 
warned about the erosion of our Fourth Amendment protections in 
the digital age.
    The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing 
Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism 
(PATRIOT) Act, for example, massively expanded domestic 
surveillance. The Bank Secrecy Act had long ago obliterated any 
real claim to privacy in your financial dealings. Most State 
bureaus of motor vehicles are monetizing the personal data 
citizens are required to provide just to drive or obtain ID. 
Now, the government is outright buying data that would 
otherwise require a warrant or a subpoena, sidestepping the 
Fourth Amendment entirely.
    Because we are serious about fostering innovation, and we 
are serious about our Constitution, we also need to recognize 
that AI should serve the American people without turning it 
into another tool for unchecked surveillance or data 
exploitation.
    Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit this document for the 
record. In my recent op-ed for the Daily Caller, I emphasize 
privacy is the foundational layer for ethical AI.
    Chairman Steil. Without objection.

    [The information referred to can be found in the appendix 
on page 96.]

    Mr. Davidson. Thank you, Chairman.
    Without it, we are handing the keys over to a surveillance 
state on steroids. I mean, we need to update the regulatory 
framework for AI or build it in Congress, and we certainly need 
to address privacy, because that is the dataset that AI is 
using. Urgent questions, including who is liable if AI is 
misused? Who profits and how when someone else's data or 
intellectual property is indexed or shared with AI? When does 
law enforcement need a warrant, if ever?
    These are not abstract questions. They are urgent, and 
Congress needs to be proactive, not reactive, to set clear 
boundaries. We cannot let AI become another excuse for Big 
Brother to pry into our lives.
    So what safeguards do we need? We should learn from other 
jurisdictions, but we should, of course, chart our own course. 
The EU's AI Act, for instance, takes an approach with outright 
bans on real-time biometric surveillance and social scoring, 
measures that align with protecting individual liberties from 
invasive tech but in other ways, the European Union has become 
pretty Orwellian with some of their privacy approaches and 
speech limitations.
    So positively framing safeguards around AI is important. 
Freedom surrendered is rarely reclaimed, so I am encouraged by 
the Trump Administration's AI Action Plan with its emphasis on 
accelerating innovation, building infrastructure, and leading 
globally. It promotes open source development, cuts red tape, 
and streamlines permitting without smothering the private 
sector.
    Mr. Reisman, how are financial regulators protecting the 
vast amounts of sensitive financial data that the government 
already collects from AI exploitation?
    Mr. Reisman. Thank you for the question.
    First of all, I just want to--to your point about raising 
data privacy and this very important foundation for a sound 
environment, not only for keeping people safe but for 
innovation. I would underscore our sense that having a sound 
privacy framework in the United States is actually not only 
consistent with but important for achieving the goals of the AI 
Action Plan. It is encouraging to see progress in that area.
    I think others may have more experience than me with what 
is going on inside the agencies for what they are doing to keep 
data safe, so I would defer to others.
    Mr. Davidson. Anyone else?
    Mr. Gorfine. I am happy to take that. I would agree that 
data is the one place screaming for Federal legislation to 
create a proper baseline for how we secure data that will be 
consumed by AI models.
    With respect to your question, what can regulators do? We 
were just talking about privacy enhancing technologies, things 
like encrypting data. Ultimately, financial regulators need to 
be recognizing that there are these developing privacy 
enhancing tools and making sure that regulated financial 
institutions can use those technologies.
    So data can be encrypted. We can avoid creating honey pots 
of information that are being sent every which way. I mean, the 
reality is today all of our information--driver's license 
photos have been emailed, sent to every single provider. There 
is a better way to move encrypted information and limit access 
to who actually gets it and when.
    Mr. Davidson. Thank you. I think the computing architecture 
is really important. I have always liked blockchain 
technologies. I like zero knowledge proofs and ways to protect 
data that way. The government in some cases has artificially 
limited that.
    I will submit written questions for the record. I am really 
curious how you protect intellectual property, copyrights, 
trademarks, and maybe monetize that for other people down the 
way. Maybe blockchain does it. Maybe there are other ways but 
thank you for your expertise and attention.
    Thanks for this hearing, Chairman, and I yield back.
    Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
    The gentlewoman from California, the ranking member of the 
full committee, Ms. Waters, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Waters. Well, thank you very much.
    Dr. Turner Lee, we have seen development of new AI 
technologies like agentic AI, which can operate independently 
and autonomously. Agentic AI is capable of self-directed and 
complex behavior and can also carry out multi-step tasks.
    Financial services companies are now experiencing and 
experimenting with agentic AI in investments, credit 
decisioning, and more. However, I am concerned about the new 
scale of risk and vulnerabilities from all of this.
    Dr. Turner, can you elaborate on the potential risks for 
agentic AI and whether a liability framework can help us 
mitigate those risks? Who is responsible for the actions of an 
AI agent if something goes wrong?
    Ms. Turner Lee. Thank you so much, Congresswoman, for that 
question.
    I think most of the conversation we have had today is on 
this promise of AI as it relates to efficiency in the financial 
sector and agentic AI as an extension of that. The more and 
more financial institutions can become more autonomous through 
chatbots and other tools that allow people to not necessarily 
talk to a financial counselor but to talk to AI to be able to 
get through their steps. It makes sense on the productivity 
side, but it does not make sense for the consumer.
    The consumer has a lot of reputational risk that comes with 
this, a lot of financial risk and in an industry where we know 
that consumers are at the heart of any type of harm or 
potential harms that come through misadvice or miscalculation, 
it could have a huge effect not only on people who are wealthy 
but people who are experiencing the wealth gap.
    So I appreciate your question. I do think we need a 
liability risk structure for this, one in which Congress thinks 
through the same type of consumer protections that we are 
defunding right now and diminishing, even with many of the 
actions today to append those regulatory agencies like the FTC 
and the CFPB.
    As we move into agentic AI, without those guardrails and 
the ability of States, in particular, to control how people 
respond to this new technology, it is actually going to go 
further than we can catch up with it.
    Ms. Waters. Wow.
    Dr. Turner Lee, the Republican regulatory sandbox proposal 
for AI we are considering today appears to be just more 
deregulation framed as innovation and lacks requirements for 
public disclosure, harm mitigation, and other important 
protections, with an unlimited scope and virtually no 
limitation, putting Americans, consumers, and other market 
participants at risk.
    I am deeply concerned that regulatory sandboxes may remove 
safeguards from a rapidly developing AI market that is already 
lacking meaningful Federal regulations and oversight. In fact, 
we have yet to fully understand the consequences of deploying 
this technology without any safeguards and are already dealing 
with countless public safety issues.
    Despite the fact that you have alluded to some of this, 
what risks do regulatory sandboxes pose? If Congress were to 
consider regulatory sandboxes for AI, what kind of standards 
should responsible sandboxes meet?
    Ms. Turner Lee. Thank you for that question as well.
    I mean, I think we have mentioned already the role of 
sandboxes in helping us to cultivate new products and services 
within the sector--and among other sectors. We actually see 
sandboxes in healthcare.
    The challenge is, without the right variables that we are 
actually constructing to make sure they are safe, ethical, 
fair, inclusive, as has been mentioned, sandboxes will turn out 
to be an exceptional exploitation of consumers.
    What that means is, without any guardrails--which, the AI 
Action Plan is suggesting there should be modifications, there 
should be waivers. We really need sandboxes to be very 
transparent. We need clear goals and questions about what it is 
trying to solve. We need protections against consumers who are 
part of those sandboxes to ensure that any harm that they face 
is--there is retribution for that as well.
    In my opinion, we can actually create this without putting 
people at risk in terms of the end product, and we can do it in 
the light, as opposed to in the dark, when it comes to 
companies and government working together on those policy 
concerns.
    Ms. Waters. I am so pleased that you are here today.
    Ms. Turner Lee. Oh, thank you and I am pleased you are here 
today too.
    Ms. Waters. I am going to call on you to continue the kind 
of education that is needed with Members not only of this 
committee but this entire Congress. I am particularly concerned 
about the possibility for wrongdoing, the possibility for 
discrimination----
    Ms. Turner Lee. Yes.
    Ms. Waters [continuing]. all of that and I want to learn 
more about the databases that are being used and how they are 
significant in determining the outcomes.
    Ms. Turner Lee. Yes.
    Ms. Waters. Thank you so very much.
    Ms. Turner Lee. Thank you.
    Chairman Steil. The gentlewoman yields back.
    The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Rose, is recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you, Chairman Steil, and thanks to Ranking 
Member Lynch for holding this important hearing.
    Thank you to all of our witnesses for taking time to be 
with us today.
    I want to start with you, Dr. Cox. Could you please 
describe the concept of technological singularity and share 
your perspective on whether you believe AI will achieve 
singularity and provide an estimate on the possible timeframe 
for this development?
    Mr. Cox. Thank you for the question.
    So the idea of a singularity is, we reach a point where the 
technology is able to advance its own progress faster and 
faster and faster, such that it can get sort of a positive 
feedback loop and then we suddenly have an explosion of 
capability.
    One of the things that is interesting that--I just dusted 
off a copy of ``The Singularity is Near'' by Ray Kurzweil that 
happened to be on a shelf that I was cleaning up. One thing you 
will see about futurists is, they often get the shape of things 
right, but the years are difficult to predict. I would not 
hazard to make a guess about when that is going to happen or if 
it is going to happen but I would just say that I do not think 
we are anywhere near--as somebody who works with this 
technology day-in and day-out, I do not think our biggest risks 
come from, sort of, some eclipse of ``AI is better at 
everything than humans are,'' but certainly our labor-market 
issues that we have to deal with as sub-tasks of a job are 
displaced but I do not think we are in imminent danger of 
anything so extreme as a singularity.
    Mr. Rose. Thanks. I appreciate the insight.
    Dr. Lee, I found an interesting article from the nonprofit 
Cash Essentials that states, quote, Some AI-driven systems may 
treat cash transactions as suspicious, leading to increased 
scrutiny and regulatory pressure that discourages cash use, 
unquote.
    How can we ensure that AI does not discriminate against 
individuals who use cash? Additionally, what measures can be 
taken to prevent AI systems from falsely flagging cash 
transactions as suspicious, thereby avoiding undue pressure on 
companies and regulators to favor cashless payments over cash 
transactions?
    Ms. Turner Lee. I do appreciate that question because I 
think we are seeing, based on the regulatory sandbox that we 
used to create the fintech industry, a lot more transactions, 
especially among the unbanked or underbanked.
    To your point, here is why I think AI could be an 
interesting tool to help us combat fraud. Improved analysis 
through AI detection systems could actually be helpful there. 
Using AI in ways that the AI sort of cleaves with the data 
about the underbanked or unbanked and combines that with 
traditional legacy systems could also be helpful.
    We also talk about AI as just taking people's data, but it 
also considers other externalities, like where you live, what 
your ZIP Code is, these other proxies. Oftentimes those proxies 
are for the worse, in terms of bias and discrimination, but 
they could actually also be helpful in helping us understand 
what the new, modern economy looks like in banking.
    So I would suggest that there are some techniques on the 
technology side, but there is also room for people like me, as 
a sociologist, to come sit at the table and help determine how 
we do this better.
    Mr. Rose. We already see--without the benefit of AI, we see 
cash transactions being discriminated against in a number of 
ways. It is a very real concern to me.
    Mr. Reisman, with the increasing prevalence of artificial 
intelligence, it is clear that AI-assisted fraud will likely 
escalate rapidly, employing novel tactics to deceive consumers. 
In my view, it is essential to warn the public about emerging 
AI-driven fraud schemes as soon as they are identified.
    How can private companies and industry stakeholders 
collaborate proactively to anticipate and combat the evolving 
threat of AI-assisted fraud?
    Mr. Reisman. Thank you for the question.
    I share your concern about fraud, and I think I have heard 
a lot of folks say we are in a moment where the defense has to 
keep up with the offense, right? We want to make sure that our 
financial institutions are empowered to have the same tools to 
detect fraud that the fraudsters are using to advance it.
    That is the most important, is that our institutions, 
whether they are small banks, whether they are large ones, have 
access to that state-of-the-art screening technology.
    I think--one thing that I talked about in my opening 
testimony was the importance of dialog and I think making sure 
that we have spaces, whether it is through sandboxes or whether 
it is through other mechanisms that are set up by the Congress 
or by the regulatory agencies, to constantly be sharing 
information about these advances in technologies and about 
these fraud capabilities so that we are all collectively 
working together on solutions.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you very much. I appreciate those insights.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
    The gentleman from California, Mr. Liccardo, is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Liccardo. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you all for your testimony and for taking the time to 
help educate us, myself in particular. I know this is a fast-
moving area and I really had questions targeting really 
primarily Dr. Cox and Dr. Lee. I would be interested in your 
views.
    We have several concepts that have been presented in 
legislation here before us, and I wanted to see if there was--I 
would like to tinker a little bit with a couple of these bills 
from Chairman Hill, the sandbox concept, and from my colleague 
Congresswoman Pettersen, the task force concept, and combine 
them in a way, if we could.
    I represent Silicon Valley. Obviously, we have a lot of 
concerns--or I hear lots of concerns in my neck of the woods 
about having government involved in regulating the code and the 
algorithms, particularly since government is not terribly good 
at it. We would expect that the technology is evolving so 
quickly that we will not be good at it but, on the other hand, 
I think there is a widespread embrace of the notion that we 
need to be mitigating the worst of the harms.
    So the question would be: If we were to create perhaps even 
more than a task force but an independent body of folks in 
industry, academics, experts, financial regulators, and others 
that were to establish what the best practices are in the 
industry--the best practices around, for example, curated data 
sets that I know you mentioned, Doctor, that IBM utilizes, or 
testing and reporting, or fraud detection, watermarking, data 
security--a whole host of best practices in the industry, and 
then hold that up as the standard, and establish, essentially, 
if that is going to be the negligence standard--or, 
essentially, the standard, if everyone complies with that 
standard, then you are exempt from liability. If you are not 
meeting that best-practices standard, then good luck with the 
lawyers and the regulators.
    What about an approach that would combine those two?
    I would ask either Dr. Lee or Dr. Cox, if you would like to 
jump in.
    Ms. Turner Lee. I will jump in first.
    Mr. Liccardo. Yes.
    Ms. Turner Lee. I think that is a tremendous idea that we 
should consider, because we seem to be at the same stalemate 
every time we talk about these issues.
    There is a technical side of it, and then there is this 
consumer output, and I do think that government regulators are 
good at the latter, the consumer protection side of it, 
because, guess what, that is the side where our constituents 
are coming to us and saying, ``Something has harmed me.''
    With regards to what you are saying, I would just like to 
offer to you that we did start that process under the previous 
administration. The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights was 
actually a nice glide path for getting to the same protections 
that you are speaking of, as well as collaboration. The 
executive order, which was soon after appended, had a lot of 
that conversation on how do you actually bring different bodies 
together from various disciplines, industry sectors, 
government, and civil society so that we actually solve this 
together.
    To date, we have seen a lot that sort of eroded in the new 
administration as well as in the AI Action Plan, where we are 
primarily competing against ourselves, when we actually just 
see China as our only force of nature.
    So I would suggest--I agree with you. I think there has to 
be more conversation, more collaboration, more disclosure among 
the various entities to get to the space that you are talking 
about and I think a task force would not be a bad idea. That 
was also recommended under the prior administration.
    Mr. Liccardo. Thank you, Doctor.
    Dr. Cox?
    Mr. Cox. I think that there are some interesting things 
emerging already. The ISO 42001 standard for just the entire 
creation process of a large language model is one example of 
something emerging, and I think that gives you a little bit of 
a sense of how these things are playing out. It is a voluntary 
standard, you get audited against it, and it is some sort of 
mark of whether you have the proper hygiene there.
    Now, that is different than regulating the algorithm, 
though, right? Like, it is----
    Mr. Liccardo. Right.
    Mr. Cox [continuing]. more about regulating processes and 
controls----
    Mr. Liccardo. Right.
    Mr. Cox [continuing]. and documentation and auditing, as 
opposed to saying, this technology, this algorithm is 
intrinsically worrisome somehow.
    I think that is one thing that I think many of the 
panelists have raised, is that there is nothing intrinsic about 
the technology; it is, how are you using it? It always has to 
be in the context of how it is being used and we have use-and-
risk-based regulation. That is a normal thing that we already 
have. So combining that with things like cybersecurity hygiene 
standards, which are now then being transported to the world of 
AI, I think that is--I think that is an evolution of what we 
already have to a good outcome.
    Mr. Liccardo. All right. Thank you. Thank you both.
    I yield.
    Chairman Steil. The gentleman yields back.
    The gentleman from Montana, Mr. Downing, is recognized for 
5 minutes.
    Mr. Downing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you to the witnesses.
    This is a really exciting topic for me. The thoughts of 
AI--I came out of technology--the opportunities are incredibly 
exciting, but it is also a little bit scary in where it goes, 
and it is interesting--I was talking to Eric Schmidt last year. 
He wrote a book on AI with the late Henry Kissinger, and he 
made a comment that I thought was really interesting, about 
being very light on how you regulate it so that we are not 
blown out of the water by our competition. Then he said 
something that really caught my attention: ``But you need to be 
ready to unplug it.'' I was not exactly sure what that meant, 
but it was an interesting comment that I am still dwelling on.
    As a former regulator, we had to deal with a lot of the 
issues with artificial intelligence as a tool for industry and 
really what the implications were. Some of the interesting 
things we did as an insurance regulator is--we were of the 
opinion that, once you wrote down a rule or a law or something 
prescriptive, it was probably already stale, because this is 
just evolving so quickly.
    So what we tried to do to inform industry on how we were 
looking at it is, all the work we did on that committee was--it 
was concept space, non-prescriptive, because you wanted to kind 
of guide how we as regulators were looking at it without 
saying, ``This is what you have to do.''
    A lot of the questions that came up there were is the 
machine biased? Is the machine bad? Is the machine--a lot of 
this kind of concern about what was coming in it.
    You know, me, you know, I think about the data. As a former 
researcher, I think garbage in, garbage out. What is the data 
you are training it with and what are the thought processes on 
how broad and how deep that data set is and what kind of 
results you have?
    But the results coming out of it--a lot of folks were 
saying, ``Well, at least in terms of a regulator, we need to 
have causation and not correlation.'' You know, I do not agree. 
I think if you have a high statistical probability of getting 
the same results from this system--a lot of our life is based 
on correlation and not causation--I think you can use that as 
reality or close to reality.
    Then, if it is giving you a result you do not like, like it 
is affecting a protected class, if it is something that you do 
not like, that is the public-policy decision, not ``machine 
bad.'' Then you have the real, honest conversation about that 
public policy.
    Another thing that folks would say on the regulator side 
very often is, ``Well, we need to be able to look into that 
black box.'' I think about, well, that black box--once you have 
an N-equals-close-to-infinity access neural network, no human 
can understand that. What tools do you need to understand that? 
You know--this is my opinion--the tool you need to understand 
that is probably generated through AI.
    So you have AI doing that, and it comes back to the ancient 
question of, ``Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?'' ``Who is 
watching the watchers?'' You know? It is an interesting problem 
to come up with.
    I am going to start--sorry about--thank you for indulging 
me on that.
    One of the things that I think about a lot is, as a State 
regulator, States' rights are very important to me and there 
has been a big conversation about that. I strongly favor 
allowing States to lead on regulation where feasible but at the 
same time, it is essential that this technology has the legal 
and regulatory flexibility to continue innovating and develop 
in the United States.
    So I am going to start with Mr. Reisman here.
    What role do you think the States should play in regulating 
AI or are you of the opinion that this is something that 
Congress needs to tackle?
    Mr. Reisman. Thank you for the question.
    I think the first question that we should be asking is, do 
we need more regulation on AI at all? We have had an 
interesting discussion about looking at what powers we already 
have, whether that is under Federal law or under State law, 
that allows us to address a lot of the questions that we may 
have about AI.
    I think that there is--one thing that we have seen is, for 
both consumers and for businesses, it can be hard when there is 
a kaleidoscope of different State regulations and so there is a 
value in having interoperable Federal standards. I think there 
is an interesting question to be explored further about whether 
there may be particular elements that States need to address as 
a----
    Mr. Downing. Right.
    Mr. Reisman [continuing]. complement but not substitute for 
that.
    Mr. Downing. Yes. Thank you on that.
    In the interest of time, I am going to move on.
    The Biden Administration seemed determined to stifle AI in 
any way it could, focusing more on potential threats than its 
clear benefits and I do believe the benefits are strong.
    So I am going to move to Mr. Gorfine, please.
    Could you describe some of the most concerning aspects of 
the Biden Administration's approach to AI, from executive 
orders to a so-called AI Bill of Rights, and discuss what the 
impact would have been had Congress passed what the Biden 
Administration proposed?
    Chairman Steil. The gentleman's time has expired, but we 
will ask the witness to provide that for the record.
    Chairman Steil. We thank you.
    The gentleman yields back.
    Mr. Downing. On that, I yield. Thank you, Chair.
    Chairman Steil. The gentlewoman from Massachusetts, Ms. 
Pressley, is recognized now for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you.
    Thank you to our witnesses for joining us today for what is 
really a timely hearing.
    When I am in my community in the Massachusetts Seventh, 
people are very animated about the future of artificial 
intelligence. I hear it all, ranging from fears of AI bias to 
excitement for innovative opportunities, to concerns about 
implications on the future of work, to confusion about what is 
next. I am proud that we are confronting these issues head-on 
today.
    September 26 to October 3 marks Boston AI Week. Startups, 
investors, researchers, and students will all convene to 
explore the role they play in the evolving AI landscape. 
Leaders in AI, like the Mass Technology Leadership Council, 
will host educational and networking events to build on State 
investments in the next generalization of leaders, educators, 
and workers in this rapidly growing field.
    I am proud to represent a district that is trailblazing the 
development of the AI industry. In Massachusetts, jobs in the 
technology sector make up 14 percent of our labor force, 
compared to 10 percent nationally and we know diversity in AI 
jobs is essential to confront bias, to maximize opportunity, 
and to make good decisions that help everyone benefit from 
these cutting-edge technologies.
    Dr. Turner Lee, I want to focus in on your research about 
the role diverse teams play in AI development and deployment. 
What are some ways diverse teams may be helpful to promote 
ethical and innovative uses of AI?
    Ms. Turner Lee. Thank you so much for that and I 
congratulate you on the AI Week in Boston.
    So I would just say there that it is important to have 
representative groups for a couple of reasons that we have 
spoken about today. I think, on both sides of this 
conversation, there is this tremendous excitement for the 
opportunities and then a tidbit of fear--and, depending on who 
you are, more or less, right?--based on what AI can do.
    It is important that we have people who have the lived 
experiences of the variety of impacts that AI can have. Why 
that is important, with any other internet technology that we 
have had, is because AI, particularly the financial sector, is 
dispersed to be very individual to that person.
    So, when we talk about data, data that is traumatized or 
discriminatory, that actually takes the account of the wealth 
gap that is experienced by, for example, Black populations, 
where they have been denied credit, loans, and other 
eligibility, shows up in the data. When you do not have people 
who understand that lived experience, that experience passes on 
generationally, and the AI tends to then affect their quality 
of life. Loan denials continue, et cetera.
    So I think it is really important to have not only 
background diversity but diversity of various people from 
various disciplines, various sectors, sitting at the table. How 
are we building financial-sector AI without people who actually 
understand how community banking works or sit in the roles of 
experienced financial literacy counselors, for example? You 
have to have everybody there.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you.
    Dr. Turner Lee, how do you believe the Federal Government 
has a role to play in this and what is that, to ensure that 
people from all walks of life--women, people of color, low-
income folks--can have careers in AI, especially in the 
financial services sector?
    Ms. Turner Lee. Well, I think you pointed it out really 
well when you talked about trying to empower local 
entrepreneurs. It is important for the Federal Government to 
create low benchmarks to entry. We see on this panel a young 
man who has his own company that is doing incredible things 
when it comes to data architecture, AI infrastructure, et 
cetera.
    Giving opportunities for a variety of people to participate 
in this ecosystem is really important, and I think the 
government could actually find ways to incentivize the private 
sector to be more inclusive of diverse founders and 
entrepreneurs and small businesses that want to participate in 
this space.
    I also think the Federal Government could do more on AI 
literacy, what does a national AI literacy initiative look 
like, so that people know that this is not about being an 
engineer; this is about actually experiencing this 
behaviorally. The way that AI is dispersing, this is not going 
to be just about experiencing it on your computer; it is going 
to actually show up in your refrigerator and other places. 
People need to know that.
    I would say the other thing that Congress should do is 
close the digital divide. We keep talking about AI, but we 
actually have not closed the basic infrastructure issue. We 
cannot build the compute facilities and data centers without 
that.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Doctor, for being so prescriptive 
there.
    Whether it is a hearing in Congress or a meet-up at the 
Museum of Science, AI is the topic of conversation, and we have 
the responsibility to ensure that all voices are included, 
because AI works best when it works for all.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Downing [presiding]. The gentlewoman yields.
    The gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Nunn, is now recognized for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Nunn. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I want to thank the panel for being here.
    Chair, as a fellow Air Force fellow, it is good to see you 
in that seat.
    As we look at what Congress has been trying to grapple 
with, this idea of artificial intelligence--I have only been 
here two terms, and we have talked about it every single year. 
In fact, we were on the AI Task Force, something this committee 
helped lead to be able to address real solutions but I think 
Washington does a lot of talking, and we should be doing a lot 
more listening, particularly to practitioners in the field who 
have been addressing this--combating it, addressing it, and 
finding new solutions for it--and incorporating your experience 
into the way that we do policy. As opposed to DC. being the one 
who writes the rules of the road and then expects you to 
execute them, we should be doing this in collaboration.
    Mr. Chair, it is one of the reasons I am leading a piece of 
policy called the Artificial Intelligence Practices, Logistics, 
Actions, and Necessities (AI PLAN) Act, or the Artificial 
Intelligence PLAN Act, to ensure that we here in Washington are 
incorporating and getting our own house in order before we 
start telling the innovators, the pioneers, and, candidly, the 
defenders how best to do it under a government auspice.
    I look back at where we were with cybersecurity when I was 
Director of Cybersecurity at the National Security Council 
(NSC). Many of the solutions were already being provided out of 
the public sector and the private sector when we worked 
together.
    With that, I want to be able to dive into a couple of 
issues that have been addressed when it comes to artificial 
intelligence.
    First and foremost, the idea of misinformation and how it 
happens not only in the financial space but across our 
government. It has lowered the barrier to entry. It has allowed 
misinformation to expand at an accelerated rate. We saw even 
this week, tragically, with the death of Charlie Kirk, Russian 
bots providing inception for everything from conspiracy 
theories to misaligning our own communications right here in 
our own country.
    Dr. Christian Lau, you have been a leader at Dynamo AI. You 
have made an effort to really bring this technology on board. I 
want to ask you, what should Congress be doing right now to do 
those things like combating state-sponsored terrorism, 
including information warfare?
    Mr. Lau. Yes. That is a great question.
    Particularly, you mentioned the PLAN Act, which you 
proposed, which I think is a really great step forward in 
looking at these different risks--how AI can be used for 
misinformation, but also used for different types of financial 
crimes, right?--and threaten systemic risk to our system.
    One thing that I would emphasize is that keeping up with 
the pace of the technology is key, and talking to practitioners 
about the latest risks is absolutely essential to making 
effective legislation, right?
    One thing that I had an opportunity to talk to your team 
about is the advent of AI agents and particularly, you brought 
up cybersecurity risks----
    Mr. Nunn. Right.
    Mr. Lau [continuing]. right?
    So AI agents is where you give these systems more autonomy 
to carry out end-to-end workflows and tasks. A lot of times, 
they can go in many different directions, but this also opens 
up new risks for agents to potentially exfiltrate data or for 
State actors to leverage agents and actually send what we call 
``prompt injection'' or ``jailbreak'' attacks to actually 
exfiltrate information from protected systems in financial 
services or elsewhere.
    So an AI agent can pull an email, that email could have an 
embedded hidden instruction or prompt injection, and that agent 
can then be overridden to actually perform malicious tasks like 
crash a system or exfiltrate sensitive information.
    So I think the work that you have been doing on this act, 
as well as talking to leading practitioners, is absolutely key 
to keeping up with these risks.
    Mr. Nunn. I could not agree with you more that the 
challenge here is, the technology is going to move much faster 
than the policy is able to keep up. So being able to provide a 
framework versus prescription is something the AI PLAN Act 
intends to do but also brings in best practitioners in this.
    I want to talk with you, Matt Reisman. You are at the 
Center for Information Policy Leadership. You have seen some of 
these innovations come on board. Talk to us a little bit about 
how not only we incorporate them to have a better safeguard for 
our government and our citizenry but, where the innovation is 
really being pioneered a lot of times by our private-sector 
partners, how should we be incorporating that into how we work 
here in Washington, DC.
    Mr. Reisman. Thank you for the question.
    I think, number one, one thing that has been encouraging to 
us to see is that, on the one hand--you have said, the 
technology is moving quickly. Responsible actors in this space 
are continuing to innovate, but they are not leaving their 
values--and they are concerned about making trustworthy AI--
behind.
    Smart businesses in this sector, including a lot of the 
leaders, recognize that having trustworthy technology is not 
just good; it is good for business because customers, 
government, other stakeholders have more trust and faith in the 
technology that we are building--that they are building.
    There is a lot to be said for government setting certain 
standards around transparency and asking for folks to show how 
does the technology work at a high level, and how are some of 
those specifications made.
    Mr. Nunn. I would like to continue to see this level of 
collaberation, in the same way we have done with cyber defense 
and bringing an AI consortium together of business leaders like 
yourself, of innovators like yourself, to be able to do this. I 
think that starts with the AI PLAN Act.
    With that, I yield my time.
    Mr. Downing. The gentleman yields.
    The gentlewoman from Colorado, Ms. Pettersen, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Pettersen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you all for being here today and I am grateful that 
you all are hosting this opportunity to talk about such an 
important issue.
    I want to address--Mr. Reisman, you talk about how we need 
to have--it is helpful if we have a regulatory framework at the 
Federal level, and we could have some complementary State laws 
as well.
    I am really worried because we worked in a bipartisan way 
to provide a framework to try to continue to move forward here 
in Congress. We are not known for being the most efficient body 
in government and our inability to come together to produce a 
regulatory framework on AI is concerning, when I look at the 
risks that are involved.
    There is great opportunity for efficiency and a lot of 
promise in all of the different sectors, but I am especially 
worried in the financial sector and the vulnerabilities that we 
have.
    We know that the risks that already--that we are facing are 
going to get exponentially worse with AI. Already, 50 percent 
of fraud has been identified as using AI. Ninety-two percent of 
the financial institutions surveyed indicate that fraudsters 
are using generative AI and 44 percent of financial professors 
report that deepfakes are used in fraudulent schemes.
    So, when I think about the impact to our financial system 
and the gaps that we are leaving here, what are the most 
important steps? This is opened up for all of you. How do we 
provide to ensure that we do not have the gaps in supporting 
our smaller financial systems, so our smaller banks, making 
sure that they have access to the technology and what would you 
recommend on providing that framework and those guardrails at 
the Federal level?
    That is a lot to ask, so do not feel the pressure but if 
anyone wants to add on just some of the key things that we need 
to be thinking about right now.
    Ms. Turner Lee. I will start.
    Ms. Pettersen. Okay.
    Ms. Turner Lee. I definitely think the conversation has 
centered around really advancing national data privacy 
standards and I think that conversation, as someone has already 
mentioned, will sort of ring in the beast of data that is 
actually fueling these systems. If we can come to some 
bipartisan support on that, I think that would be helpful.
    I also think that approaching, Congresswoman, as you said, 
some of these very nuanced areas, like deepfakes--data is out 
there that seniors are thinking that their grandchildren are 
calling them for money. When a senior's economic viability is 
compromised, that is worse for the whole family. I think going 
into those verticals where there is bipartisan agreement is 
another area--we have seen that with the Tools to Address Known 
Exploitation by Immobilizing Technological Deepfakes on 
Websites and Networks (TAKE IT DOWN) Act--in terms of anything 
that has to do with any manipulated content, I think is a step 
forward.
    But I do also think that we have to reimagine what it looks 
like in terms of regulatory framework that has some guidance 
and guardrails, which I would be happy to share with your 
office in more detail.
    Ms. Pettersen. That is great. I look forward to working 
with you on this and we have a bill, as well, that I have 
worked with Representative Flood on; it is the Preventing Deep 
Fake Scams Act.
    This is important because our agencies are only able to 
take on what we are directing them to do and so, when we look 
at trying to change with the times to make sure that they have 
the support they need to address the challenges that we are 
facing now, can you speak to the greater coordination needed 
between the regulators, the industry, and the subject-matter 
experts to develop strategies to protect financial institutions 
and consumers from fraud using AI?
    Ms. Turner Lee. I sure can, if no one else will.
    I think on the deepfake side, I think the challenge that we 
have is that, because we have multiple agencies with 
jurisdiction over this particular area, we have not come up 
with some shared values and goals on, one, how are we defining 
this.
    We have had a lot of conversation, to your point, where we 
have not necessarily agreed on, on the copyright area, this 
digital provenance. The same thing, I think, is actually going 
to go into the deepfake space, where we are looking at 
extracted video, text, and audio and trying to determine, where 
is this coming from? That is very hard for us to track at this 
moment but also coming up with some shared values and goals 
across the various agencies that are responsible for 
enforcement over that.
    I think if we are able to actually get away from some of 
that fragmentation, we could actually push forward with really 
good legislation that protects people from clones.
    Ms. Pettersen. Great.
    Mr. Reisman?
    Mr. Reisman. Yes. I just wanted to say--to praise, in the 
bill you have called for specifically bringing together 
industry and expert stakeholders to talk with regulators and 
government to try and figure out how to solve these problems 
together. It has never been more important, as the technology 
moves quickly, to have all of these voices in the room to 
problem-solve together.
    Ms. Pettersen. It seems like this should just--we should 
bring bills to do this for every agency across--sorry. Thank 
you. I yield my time.
    Mr. Downing. The gentlewoman yields.
    The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Timmons, is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
    I am pleased that the subcommittee is turning its attention 
to the use of artificial intelligence in financial markets. 
Like stablecoins and market structure, this is a technology 
that will have a significant impact on how American companies 
and consumers engage with our evolving financial systems.
    In order for the United States to remain a global leader in 
innovation, we must establish clear rules of the road that 
allow the free market to thrive, and we must do so thoughtfully 
and effectively.
    As I continue to meet with industry leaders, I am 
increasingly concerned about the growing number of conflicting 
State laws related to AI. These laws often vary in scope, 
definition, and enforcement, creating a complex regulatory 
environment for businesses to operate across multiple 
jurisdictions.
    This patchwork of regulation makes it more difficult for 
companies to scale, innovate, and remain compliant, while also 
increasing the risk of inconsistent protections and outcomes 
for consumers. Without a unified approach, we risk slowing 
progress and creating barriers that disadvantage both American 
businesses and the people they serve.
    Mr. Gorfine, States have introduced more than a thousand 
laws related to the use of artificial intelligence. From your 
perspective, what are the most pressing risks of a State-by-
State regulatory patchwork for both consumers and innovators?
    Mr. Gorfine. It is a good question.
    I want to start by being very clear that when I look at 
this issue I am talking about it within the context of the 
regulated financial services sector. There may be issues 
outside of financial services where States are engaging on AI, 
but I think that what is really important is to recognize that 
there are existing Federal and State laws, there is existing 
regulation, and there is existing guidance that financial 
institutions adhere to where a patchwork of State laws can 
absolutely interfere, conflict, or create ambiguity for 
financial services firms operating on a national level.
    I think that is especially clear in the data context. We 
have existing Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) data privacy laws 
in place for financial services firms. If you start introducing 
a patchwork of State approaches, that can be really 
problematic.
    The same goes for when it comes to risk management. There 
is a very careful risk management framework in place for 
financial services, and, again, I do worry about interference 
of State laws there.
    So that is how I am thinking about the interplay of State 
and Federal, especially in the context of the financial 
services space.
    Mr. Timmons. I am going to turn that a little bit around 
and say, while this is going to be difficult for financial 
services companies to comply and to work across State lines, 
let us talk about the AI companies that are trying to create 
these products.
    I mean, the Chinese are ahead of us or close to being ahead 
of us, and the businesses that they have that are focused on 
this do not have this burden. Would you say that is an equally 
difficult challenge?
    Mr. Gorfine. Yes. I mean, the broader question for AI is 
that I do think having a proper Federal framework that allows 
us to operate on a national scale makes really good policy, 
market, and competitiveness sense. That is something that I 
would absolutely encourage because, as we are describing, it is 
not even just a national competition; it is global, right? 
These activities transcend borders and having a coherent, kind 
of, Federal framework there makes good sense in the AI context.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you for that.
    While there are many challenges involved in legislating and 
establishing clear rules of the road for artificial 
intelligence, there are also powerful opportunities. Artificial 
intelligence has the potential to equip financial institutions 
with advanced tools to better serve their clients, improve 
efficiency, and reduce risk.
    As I mentioned earlier, one of the most common concerns 
that I hear from both large financial institutions and smaller 
community banks and credit unions is the burden that regulatory 
compliance places on their operations. These requirements 
strain both their financial resources and staffing capacity.
    Artificial intelligence offers a promising solution to help 
automate and streamline compliance processes, allowing firms to 
redirect time and resources toward innovation and customer 
service.
    Dr. Lau, given the significant burden that regulatory 
compliance places on financial institutions of all sizes, how 
is artificial intelligence helping firms streamline these 
processes and manage risk more effectively?
    Mr. Lau. Thank you for the question.
    Definitely, we see applying AI to compliance workflows as 
one of the highest return on investment (ROI) activities that 
we are seeing banks implement today, including smaller 
community banks and regional banks, right? The reason is not 
just so they are able to automate more workflows where you have 
low staffing, but also they open up new opportunities for 
greater compliance. Think about continuous monitoring, 24-hour 
audits, et cetera, right?
    On the flip side, you also need to be able to look at, as 
you are introducing AI to these regulated workflows, what type 
of guardrails or controls are put around those AIs so that they 
are able to follow the right policies and procedures when 
executing those workflows. That, actually, in many cases, is 
the more challenging problem, is, how do you rein in this 
autonomous AI to actually carry out the tasks effectively and 
in compliance?
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you for that.
    Emerging technology has the ability to make sure that the 
U.S. is the center of the global economy for decades to come, 
and we have to get this right.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Downing. The gentleman yields.
    The gentleman from New York, Mr. Torres, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Torres. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    AI is the most transformative technology of our time. The 
rise of generative AI could prove to be as revolutionary as the 
advent of writing or the advent of the printing press. Whether 
AI will create a better world or a worse world, no one knows 
for sure. What we do know for sure is that the world will be 
radically different from anything we have seen before.
    There is nothing new about the use of AI in finance. What 
is new is the use of generative AI, large language models, in 
finance.
    So my first question: What are the capabilities in finance 
that a large language model can perform that legacy AI has been 
historically unable to perform?
    Anyone who can answer that question is free to do so.
    Mr. Lau. I can go ahead and jump in.
    I think Dr. Cox actually mentioned at the beginning, the 
reason why there is so much investment in this space is because 
it is general-purpose AI, meaning that it could actually do 
many different things. You can prompt it in infinitely 
different ways to carry out certain types of workflows that are 
very specific to your day-to-day, all the way to doing things 
like continuous monitoring, et cetera, right?
    So that is the power of the technology, are these general-
purpose AI models----
    Mr. Torres. What is the best new use--what is the best new 
use case in finance?
    Mr. Lau. Yes. I would say--I mentioned compliance as one of 
the very high ROI activities because of the manual effort 
involved in that but I would say, the most mature one that is 
delivering the highest ROI that we see is around developer 
productivity, the ability for these AI agents to actually go 
and build applications from scratch, empowering even, we are 
seeing, small community banks to leverage these to actually 
really accelerate their own software development and 
integrating their infrastructure stack.
    Mr. Torres. Can an AI banker outperform a human banker?
    Mr. Lau. I think one of the biggest challenges to actually 
having the AI outperform a human banker is to make sure that it 
complies with the common sense of a human banker, right? That 
has actually been challenging when you look at AI agents, to 
give them that type of common sense out of the box, even given 
the vast amounts of data that they have been trained on.
    So building guardrails that a human is trained to follow is 
something that is still an open challenge but something we are 
helping a lot of these banks with today.
    Mr. Torres. Because I know Members of Congress are 
irreplaceable, but I am wondering if bankers and traders are 
replaceable by AI.
    What is the impact of AI on concrete applications like 
credit scoring, loan approvals, fraud prevention and detection? 
Like, does AI lead to more loan approvals or fewer? Does it 
lead to more inclusive credit scoring or less inclusive credit 
scoring? What is the outcome so far.
    Ms. Turner Lee. I can--oh, do you want--well, I can point 
to that.
    I mean, I think we thought, because of the objective nature 
of AI, that it would be easier to see more loan approvals, more 
credit applications actually confirmed----
    Mr. Torres. Where did we get this notion that AI is 
objective?
    Ms. Turner Lee. Well, we thought----
    Mr. Torres. The data comes from the internet.
    Ms. Turner Lee. Well, that is what I was going to say. We 
thought----
    Mr. Torres. It is a reflection of human nature.
    Ms. Turner Lee. That is right and because the data that is 
fueling the AI systems basically comes from us--and 
particularly in generative AI, it is curated data. It is not 
necessarily predictive data. It is data that exists on people 
on the public internet--we are actually in some cases the same 
results and in other instances worse.
    We have seen that also on the housing appraisal side when 
it comes to homeownership, that even if you scrub your entire 
home of any type of remnant or artifact of you, the AI will 
still generate the same results, because AI uses other 
proxies--your address, your net worth in your community, et 
cetera--Congressman.
    So I think, when we say that AI is better than humans or a 
banker can outperform a human, probably in time, but 
expeditious calculation of how we make these decisions comes at 
foreclosing on opportunities economically for various 
consumers.
    Mr. Torres. Can AI--I guess I was going to ask, can AI be 
harnessed to expand access to capital, to expand access to 
credit? One of my frustrations--I have real frustrations with 
traditional credit scoring methodology. Can AI detect new 
patterns of evaluating creditworthiness?
    Mr. Gorfine. I think that is right. I mean, traditional 
credit scores are highly correlated with protected class 
characteristics.
    One thing I would suggest is to consider second-look 
applications of AI. What that means is, if you take an existing 
decline pool and you run the decline pool through, kind of, 
cutting-edge, gen-AI-related underwriting models, you will at 
worst case result in another decline, but you may actually 
start pulling some approvals through that process, and you 
mitigate some of your initial concerns around the impact of 
such models.
    So I think there are ways to smartly start testing these 
models in a way that upholds fairness.
    Mr. Torres. The question for me--because, inevitably, AI is 
going to have some measure of algorithmic bias----
    Ms. Turner Lee. That is right.
    Mr. Torres [continuing]. right? The question for me is not 
whether it is completely free of bias but whether we can make 
it less biased than the human alternative.
    Is that an achievable mission?
    Ms. Turner Lee. Well, I think it is achievable if there is 
transparency, first and foremost, that an AI model is making 
the decision on behalf of the financial--on a financial 
application. Many people do not know that AI is actually being 
used to make those credit decisions, so you have to start with 
public disclosure.
    I think the second thing, to your point, is, we do need a 
stat that is able to actually evaluate what the 
disproportionate impact--disparate impact is.
    Mr. Torres. I am about to be replaced by AI but thank you.
    Mr. Downing. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I would like to thank all the witnesses for your testimony 
today.
    Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days 
to submit additional written questions for the witnesses to the 
chair. The questions will be forwarded to the witnesses for 
their response.
    Witnesses, please respond no later than October 23, 2025.

    [The information referred to can be found in the appendix.]

    Mr. Downing. With that, this hearing is adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 3:47 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

                            [all]

      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      

                                APPENDIX

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