Blumenthal Delivers Opening Statement at Hearing on Legislating Artificial Intelligence

[WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, delivered opening remarks at today’s hearing on “Oversight of AI: Legislating on Artificial Intelligence.” Blumenthal discussed the bipartisan legislative framework he announced last week with Ranking Member U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), calling it, “a blueprint for a path forward to achieve legislation.”

“Our interest is in legislation, and this hearing, along with the two previous ones, have to be seen as a means to that end. We are very result-oriented,” said Blumenthal. “There is a deep appetite, indeed a hunger, for rules and guardrails. Basic safeguards for businesses and consumers, for people in general, from the panoply of potential perils. But there is also a desire to make use of the tremendous potential benefits.”

The bipartisan framework lays out specific principles for upcoming legislative efforts, including establishing an independent oversight body and licensing regime; ensuring legal accountability for harms such as privacy breaches, civil rights violations, and other actions that may endanger the public; defending national security; promoting transparency; and protecting consumers and kids.

Blumenthal called for, “Regulation that permits and encourages innovation and new businesses, technology, and entrepreneurship. And at the same time, provides those guardrails, enforceable safeguards that can encourage trust and confidence in this growing technology…It should be regulation that encourages the best in American free enterprise, but at the same time provides the kind of protections that we do in other areas of our economic activity.”

After encouraging feedback on the framework from colleagues, industry leaders, and others, Blumenthal stressed the need for action and said he hopes to present legislation by the end of the year. 

“We need to learn from our experience with social media that if we let this horse get out of the barn, it will be even more difficult to contain than social media. And we are seeing that on social media, the harms it portends right now as we speak,” said Blumenthal.

Video of Blumenthal’s opening remarks can be found here. The full transcript of Blumenthal’s statement is available below.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT): The hearing of our Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law will come to order. I want to welcome our witnesses, all of the audience who are here, and say a particular thanks to Senator Schumer who has been very supportive and interested in what we are doing here. And also to Chairman Durbin, whose support has been invaluable in encouraging us to go forward here.

I have been grateful, especially to my partner in this effort, Senator Hawley, the ranking member. He and I as you know have produced a framework – basically a blueprint for a path forward to achieve legislation. Our interest is in legislation, and this hearing, along with the two previous ones, have to be seen as a means to that end. We are very result-oriented, as I know you are from your testimony.

And I have been enormously encouraged and emboldened by the response so far just in the past few days and from my conversations with leaders in the industry, like Mr. Smith. There is a deep appetite, indeed a hunger, for rules and guardrails. Basic safeguards for businesses and consumers, for people in general, from the panoply of potential perils. But there is also a desire to make use of the tremendous potential benefits.

And our effort is to provide for regulation in the best sense of the word. Regulation that permits and encourages innovation and new businesses, technology, and entrepreneurship. And at the same time, provides those guardrails, enforceable safeguards that can encourage trust and confidence in this growing technology. It is not a new technology entirely. It has been around for decades, but artificial intelligence is regarded as entering a new era.

Make no mistake, there will be regulation. The only question is how soon and what? It should be regulation that encourages the best in American free enterprise, but at the same time provides the kind of protections that we do in other areas of our economic activity.

To my colleagues who say there is no need for new rules, we have enough laws protecting the public, yes we have laws that prohibit unfair and deceptive competition, we have laws that regulate airline safety and drug safety. But nobody would argue simply because we have those rules, we don't need specific protections for medical device safety or car safety. Just because we have rules that prohibit discrimination in the workplace doesn't mean we don't need rules that prohibit discrimination in voting. And we need to make sure these protections are framed and targeted in a way that apply to the risks involved. Risk-based rules. Managing the risk is what we need to do here.

So our principles are pretty straightforward I think. We have no pride of authorship. We have circulated this framework to encourage comment. We will not be offended by criticism from any corner. That is the way we can make this framework better and eventually achieve legislation, we hope, I hope at least by the end of this year.

And the framework is basically; establishing a licensing regime for companies engaged in the high-risk AI development; creating an independent oversight body that has expertise with AI and works with other agencies to administer and enforce the law; protecting our national and economic security to make sure we aren't enabling China or Russia, another adversary to interfere in our democracy or violate human rights; requiring transparency about the limits and use of AI models, and at this point includes rules like watermarking, digital disclosure when AI is being used, and data access for researchers; and ensuring that AI companies be held liable when their products breach privacy, violate civil rights, endanger the public, deepfakes, impersonation, hallucination, we have all heard those terms. We need to prevent those harms.

Senator Hawley and I, as former attorneys general of our states, have a deep and abiding affection for the potential enforcement powers of those officials, state officials, but the point is there must be effective enforcement. Private rights of action as well as federal enforcement are very, very important.

So let me close by saying before I turn it over to my colleague, we are going to have more hearings. The way to build a coalition in support of these measures is to disseminate as widely as possible the information that’s needed for our colleagues to understand what is at stake here. We need to listen to the kinds of industry leaders and experts we have before us today and we need to act with dispatch. More than just deliberate speed. We need to learn from our experience with social media that if we let this horse get out of the barn, it will be even more difficult to contain than social media. And we are seeing that on social media, the harms it portends right now as we speak.

We are literally at the cusp of a new era. I asked Sam Altman when he sat where you are what his greatest fear was. I said my nightmare is the massive unemployment that could be created. That is an issue we don't deal with directly here, but it shows how wide the ramifications may be, and we need to deal with potential worker displacement in training and this new era is one that portends enormous promise but also perils. We need to deal with both. I will turn now to Ranking Member Senator Hawley.

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