U.S. News: Business, Labor Primed for Fight Over Regulating AI.

 

"WASHINGTON -- The Federal Trade Commission's investigation into the ChatGPT app points to an emerging conflict over how Washington should regulate artificial intelligence, one that could pit some of America's biggest businesses against labor unions and progressive advocacy groups.

Businesses want to use systems like ChatGPT, which can instantly generate media and imitate human conversation, to cut the number of employees needed to write documents or answer calls. AI-driven bots could also open up new markets by creating individually customized ads or pitching customers in live conversation.

Labor unions, privacy advocates and consumer groups see AI's potential benefits, too. But they fear AI will eliminate jobs and downgrade working conditions. If an AI system were trained to persuade, bad actors could feed it a person's private data and use it to manipulate or defraud, some warn.

Now, as the U.S. government takes its first steps toward regulating AI, the Biden administration's close ties to labor and progressive groups have some in business and tech concerned that the regulatory push will go too far, by stunting the development and use of a technology seen as crucial to powering the U.S. economy in the future.

Those fears were stoked by disclosure last week of the FTC probe of ChatGPT creator OpenAI. The agency is asking detailed questions about OpenAI's policies for selling access to its AI systems to other businesses.

"The regulatory uncertainty and overreach that could come with such an approach would significantly hamstring America's ability to compete and deploy societally beneficial uses of AI," said Jordan Crenshaw, a senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

How businesses and consumers can harness the benefits while avoiding abuses of the powerful technology is at the heart of the regulatory debate. 

OpenAI's GPT and other so-called generative AI systems could power virtual agents tuned to the desires of specific individuals with the ability to converse with humans in real time, upending how Americans work, shop and travel.

"Throughout our digital lives, we will just talk to our computers," Louis Rosenberg, chief executive of AI developer Unanimous AI, said at a recent conference hosted by the advocacy group Public Citizen.

That will create opportunities for businesses to exercise "targeted, customized, influence at scale," Rosenberg said. But if left unregulated, such a tool "could be the most dangerous technology for human manipulation that we've had to confront," he added.

The FTC hasn't said it intends to write a broad AI regulation. In drafting both a national strategy on AI and recommendations for "accountability measures," Biden administration officials have said they want to strike a balance between fostering innovation and preventing harm. Labor is a key constituency of the Biden administration, and union representatives met with White House officials July 3 to voice their concerns.

Unions are concerned not only about job losses, but about companies using AI applications to keep tabs on workers outside of their jobs, where an AI-driven system might identify a group of workers carrying their employer-issued smartphones to a union organizing meeting, according to Amanda Ballantyne, director of AFL-CIO's technology institute.

Microsoft and OpenAI have called on the U.S. to develop a new AI regulatory program, including by setting up a new federal agency to license powerful AI systems.

That sentiment isn't shared by everyone in the tech industry. Alphabet's Google, which offers AI systems that compete with Microsoft and OpenAI, said in its comment that it opposes a new "Department of AI" and favors instead "a hub-and-spoke approach -- with a central agency like the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) informing sectoral regulators" overseeing specific industries." [1]

Lithuania news: Crickets... We just bought several more trucks to transport our military. Where are we going? In circles...

1. U.S. News: Business, Labor Primed for Fight Over Regulating AI. Ryan, Tracy. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 20 July 2023: A.2.