[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 149 (Tuesday, September 24, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6356-S6358]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Artificial Intelligence

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to again call on my 
colleagues across the aisle to take action to put in place commonsense 
guardrails to address the risk that artificial intelligence poses to 
our elections.
  There are some incredible innovations that we are seeing and will see 
as a result of AI, and our country is in the lead. I want those 
innovations to be good, and I want us to lead the world as we have for 
so long, but if we don't put some commonsense rules in place, such as 
the bill Senator Thune and I have, to create a regulatory framework for

[[Page S6357]]

nondefense applications or some of the other bipartisan bills that have 
come out of the Commerce Committee, I think that we are going to lose 
the positive for the negative. So I am trying to look at some 
commonsense rules, and one of the most obvious ways that we can put 
some rules in place is when it comes to democracy, which, to me, is 
kind of a hair-on-fire moment.
  Like any emerging technology, as we know, AI brings both opportunity 
and uncertainty. As columnist David Brooks has said, the people in AI 
seem to be experiencing radically different brain states all at once.
  He said:

       I've found it incredibly hard to write about AI because it 
     is literally unknowable whether this technology is leading us 
     to heaven or hell.

  So we want it to lead us to heaven, and we want to get those new 
cures for medical diseases, and I have seen the work done right in my 
own State at Mayo.
  But one of the things that we must do--and Senator Schumer and 
Senators Heinrich and Rounds and Young have been leading the way--is to 
find a group of bills that we could actually pass, and perhaps we could 
do this at the end of the year. The ones that I would like to see 
today--which I know cannot happen as we work on the budget but at least 
by the end of the year--is to do something when it comes to democracy 
and the kind of videos and fake robocalls and things that we are seeing 
that could be a dangerous--and have already been a dangerous--threat to 
our democracy.
  Maybe the first time this kind of hit the national conscience was 
something that wasn't actually created by AI. It was actually the 
voice. It turned out to be the voice of a magician who pretended that 
he was President Biden; and in the New Hampshire primary, he called 
people and said that they should not vote. That case, fortunately, has 
been taken up in New Hampshire by the prosecutors and is being 
investigated and prosecuted.
  These are the kinds of things, when in the hands of AI, are going to 
get very dangerous because we are not going to know whether or not it 
is Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. We are not going to know if it is 
really them or if it is a fake. We are already seeing videos and voices 
and things, so I am asking my colleagues to join with me to do what 
people have already done in so many States, including in red States.
  Texas--Texas--has a ban on deepfakes. Minnesota has a ban on 
deepfakes. States like Mississippi and Utah have put in labeling 
requirements so that at least you know if something is being created by 
AI; so when an innocent citizen looks at the video or looks at the ad, 
they see that at the bottom.
  And not everything is the same. If you use AI to, say, change your 
hair color or do something to make someone look better, that doesn't 
come under at least the bills that we have for Federal elections that 
we are proposing. But if you actually are trying to mislead voters 
about whether or not it is actually the person, that would come under 
the bill that Senators Hawley and Collins and I--yes, that is right--
that Senators Hawley and Collins and Coons and I and a number of others 
have introduced that would simply say: Once you do something like that, 
then you have to take it down.
  We have a number of platforms, including open AI and Microsoft and 
others, that are supporting this bill. This is not some kind of radical 
idea. We haven't had any serious pushback for this particular bill 
because we were so careful in drafting it. We understood that we 
couldn't include, say, satire. When you have a satire, a joke thing 
that comes out, the Constitution says you can't really ban that, right? 
That's speech.
  But for those kinds of products, we think you should at least say on 
it--which is allowed; this is what all these States have done--
``produced by AI.'' That is the bill that Senator Murkowski and I 
have--the Republican across our aisle, my friend from Alaska. So these 
are both bipartisan bills, and I am urging my colleagues to look at 
them.
  Election day is now less than 45 days away. We have voters already 
casting their ballots, and absentee ballots have been mailed out. 
Truly, this is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. This is an 
American issue. People should be able to know that, when they see a 
candidate, it is the candidate.
  We have a number of bills, as I said, that are before us, and I want 
people to know--and my colleague from Georgia, the Acting President pro 
tempore, is well aware--of how people can try to mess with elections. 
His words would probably be more straightforward than any words I will 
say today when it comes to trying to stop people from voting or feeding 
them with information. Sometimes it just comes down to some people 
don't want some people to vote. That is what that radio ad was about--
radio; I am sorry--that call that was made in New Hampshire was all 
about: trying to get people not to vote or to think things are so bad 
that they don't want to vote for the person.
  But there is something even more insidious going on, and that is that 
we have heard from our intelligence Agencies that foreign adversaries, 
like Iran, China, and Russia, are trying to interfere with our 
democracy.
  Just this month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence 
issued a public report confirming this. In May, the Director of 
National Intelligence, Avril Haines, testified about an increase in 
foreign influence efforts and how AI can make it easier to amplify 
deceptive content. By the way, this has happened before in our 
elections, and it has happened around the world. It is not necessarily, 
in some cases, directed at the right or the left. The foreign interest 
just decides: Well, what do I want to mess around? Sometimes, as in the 
past, Russia just wants to mess around--mess around with the right or 
with the left--just to create chaos.
  FBI Director Christopher Wray echoed this concern when he said that 
the U.S. will face more adversaries moving at a faster pace enabled by 
new technology. And the Department of Justice took action 3 weeks ago 
to disrupt Russian Government-backed efforts to interfere in our 
election, which includes the use of AI to spread disinformation online.
  We have seen this technology being used to generate viral misleading 
content to spread disinformation and deceive voters about candidates 
from both parties.
  In July, as I note, there was just recently the deepfake of Vice 
President Harris's voice saying things she never would say about 
President Biden. According to reports, it was seen more than 130 
million times in just 4 days. Now, you know, maybe if you were to watch 
the whole thing, you would know that it is not her. Not everyone does 
that, right? You look at snippets on the internet; you look at part of 
it. Again, I had people say ``wow'' to me. I know that seems strange 
for people who are in the Beltway, and they watch everything, but if 
you just watch something for a few seconds, you may not know whether or 
not it is actually the candidate or not. That is why, in this case--
because it was arguably satire--you would at least have a label through 
the whole thing, and that would be a requirement if we pass the bill 
Senator Murkowski and I have.
  Earlier this month, Taylor Swift talked about how AI was being used 
to make it look like she endorsed a candidate that she didn't even 
endorse. As the election approaches, now is when disinformation can 
have its biggest impact and when we could possibly see the worst of the 
worst.
  So whether you are Democrat or Republican, no one wants to see fake 
ads or robocalls when you cannot even tell if it is the candidate you 
love or the candidate you don't like. That is why, as I note, 19 States 
across the country--red, blue, and purple--have passed laws in this 
area.
  On the Federal level, the bill I have with Senator Collins and 
Senator Hawley is sitting there. We got it through the Rules Committee. 
But unfortunately our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have 
blocked this bill from being considered in the past when I asked 
unanimous consent for it.
  I note it is a bipartisan bill. It is supported by 40 national 
security experts and current and former government officials, including 
former Secretaries of Defense Chuck Hagel and Leon Panetta and 
Secretaries of State from both parties. It is supported by former 
Federal Election Commission Chairman Trevor

[[Page S6358]]

Potter, who was appointed by a Republican President. I mentioned 
OpenAI, Microsoft, IBM, and Salesforce supporting the bill. It has a 
bipartisan companion bill led by Representatives Derek Kilmer of 
Washington and Tony Gonzales, a Republican from Texas.
  We must get this done.
  At this point, we are going to have to now rely on the platform--some 
of whom have policies in place--to take down these fake ads and these 
fake videos. Many of them have committed to do so. But those are not 
all the platforms, and we are much better off if we have standard 
legislation across the country that doesn't preempt the State laws for 
their own work but actually sets a standard for Federal elections--
President, Senate, and Congress.
  So I hope this isn't as bad as I think it is going to be through 
October, but I think we are already seeing signs that it is. That is 
not democracy. We cannot have a functioning democracy if our people 
can't tell if it is their candidate or not. It is going to make things 
much, much worse.
  We can't stand on the sidelines. Let's work together for the sake of 
our democracy to put in place commonsense rules of the road on AI to 
uphold trust and faith in our election. I stand ready to work with our 
colleagues in any way to get this done.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kelly). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________