The New York Times reports:

Trump’s blasé attitude about existential A.I. fears influences both his administration and the Republican Party he still tightly controls.

At a conference in Washington last week, government officials and corporate executives talked about the promises of A.I. — for everything from next-generation military operations to espionage to cybersecurity in critical infrastructure — during nearly every panel. While the risks of A.I. wielded by adversaries were mentioned at times, what was little discussed was the need to slow down or regulate the powerful technology.

Speaking on stage last Thursday at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit, Sean Cairncross, the White House national cyber director, said the administration was “trying to balance the innovation side and running at speed with securing our systems and handling this technology responsibly, which is to say, not letting it fall into the hands of people who would do us harm, our adversaries.” Mr. Cairncross did not directly address ascendant fears about the rapid pace of A.I. advancement, or recent episodes of rogue agents breaking loose and hacking into other networks.

Some in the White House and elsewhere in the administration do see a need to be more proactive in addressing A.I. safety risks, but do not want to cross Mr. Trump, former officials said.

“There is a fear of getting ahead of the president,” said Michael Garcia, who served as the associate chief of policy at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency until he departed in June.

“We’ve seen tech executives call the president when they hear about a potential new policy to voice their displeasure, and that then leads to a policy changing or being killed,” Mr. Garcia said. “This inevitably leads to inertia to develop new national security policy that may be sorely needed.”

Indeed, David Sacks, a venture capitalist and Mr. Trump’s influential former A.I. czar, dismissed during an interview with Fox News the warnings by Mr. Coxon as a coordinated media operation that was “designed to scare the public” and lead to onerous government regulation. And Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chips juggernaut Nvidia, said the new round of fear was ginned up by the cybersecurity industry.

On Capitol Hill, the story is not much different. Until last week, A.I. only registered for many lawmakers as it related to public antipathy about the construction of data centers, which has become politically salient in the midterm elections, according to lawmakers and aides in both parties. Past efforts to examine A.I.’s potential consequences have led to hearings and alarmed statements of concern from both parties, but little else.

Representative Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat who sits on multiple A.I. and cybersecurity subcommittees, said the breakneck speed of A.I.’s evolution made it difficult for lawmakers to keep up.

“I keep stressing the importance of regularly educating lawmakers on A.I. and the latest developments,” Mr. Gottheimer said. “Recent incidents like the Hugging Face hack are a real warning sign for what can happen if we don’t seriously address the risks these models can pose,” he added, referring to the A.I. company hacked by rogue OpenAI models earlier this year.

Adding to that challenge is that A.I. is not just a technology issue but a jobs, military and whole-of-society issue, meaning there is no one congressional committee neatly situated to take the lead on wrestling with all its tentacles. [Continue reading…]