Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va.
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WASHINGTON — Don Beyer was no ordinary student at George Mason University. He is 73 years old. He prefers a notebook and pen to a laptop for note-taking. And he is a leading AI policymaker in Congress.
The Virginia Democrat found AI fascinating, but success came when he realized he could enroll in computer science classes at George Mason University. So he enrolled, starting with the required classes that would lead him to a master’s degree in machine learning.
Beyer can only take about one class a semester, as she balances voting on the floor, working on legislation and fundraising with completing her coding homework. But the classes are already providing benefits.
“With each additional course I take, I think I understand more about how the actual coding works,” he recently told CNBC. “What it means to have large datasets, what it means to find these linkages and, perhaps, what it means to have unintended consequences.”
Beyer is part of nearly every group of House lawmakers working on AI. He is the vice chair for the bipartisan Congressional Artificial Intelligence Caucus and a newer AI working group started by The New Democrat Coalition, the largest group of centrist Democrats in the House.
He was also a member of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s working group on AI, which could be revived under Speaker Mike Johnson. On the legislative side, he was a leader in a bill on expand access to the high-powered computational tools needed to develop AI.
Crash course
As members of Congress work to accelerate AI this fall with hearings, forums and a dinner with Open AI CEO Sam Altman, Beyer said his time in the classroom gave him insight into what goes on under the hood.
He also learned how easy it is for a small mistake to have a big impact on the code. Beyer said one of his daughters, also a coder, sent him a big book about debugging programs that was “very, very long.”
“You make big mistakes, then you make silly little mistakes that take you time to find. And you realize how imperfect any technology is,” he said. “That will drive a lot of effort to defend against the downside risks of AI.”
Congress is grappling with how to move forward with AI.
In the Chamber, Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., who served on McCarthy’s AI working group with Beyer, told CNBC that he had spoken briefly with Johnson, R-La, and that the speaker was interested in restarting the AI group as soon as possible, after tougher battles such as government funding.
Obernolte said there are several different directions the House could take on AI, including enacting digital privacy protections for consumers or deciding whether a new federal agency should oversee AI, or whether the each money agency the issue.
Obernolte, who has a masters degree in artificial intelligence, said there is no shortage of smart AI lawmakers, including Beyer.
“Don is wonderful, very knowledgeable, you know, really passionate about this particular issue,” he said.
‘Time is precious’
Another issue Congress is looking at is the ease with which videos and photos that look real but are generated by AI can spread — particularly those that show events that never happened, or real people saying things they didn’t. basically said, that could affect the elections.
Rep. said. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., who chairs the New Democrats’ AI working group, said the 2024 election is giving new thought to how to reduce the impact of misleading or fake media.
“The implications for the spread of misinformation for the integrity of our public discourse or democracy are significant,” Kilmer told CNBC. “And that’s what drives this push.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., recently said that “time is of the essence” when it comes to dealing with AI-generated videos and images. “This may be the thing we need to do first, when it comes to legislation and creating AI guardrails.”
However, Beyer worries that Congress won’t be able to move quickly enough to keep up with the rapid pace of new AI models.
“What we’re trying to do is not replicate our failures in social media, where for 20-plus years we haven’t regulated,” Beyer said. “Social media has had great positive effects, but some pretty scary downsides with misinformation, disinformation.”
Beyer acknowledged that because of spending fights and the House speaker’s bouquet, Congress is unlikely to pass AI legislation this year. But he hopes something will move next year, before the 2024 elections.
