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Happy Thursday! I’ll be right back; just consuming every piece of content about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/02/07/pliosaur-giant-sea-monster-david-attenborough/">the “T. rex of the sea.”</a> Send news tips and fossil sightings to: <a href="mailto:cristiano.lima@washpost.com">cristiano.lima@washpost.com</a>.

Below: A key White House AI initiative ramps up. First:

Silicon Valley’s Khanna: Top scholars being ‘ignored’ in AI debate

Leah Millis

The artificial intelligence craze has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/16/sam-altman-open-ai-congress-hearing/">swept through Washington</a> this past year, with lawmakers increasingly paying attention to the ways the tool can be harnessed — or cause harm.&nbsp;

But according to Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who represents parts of Silicon Valley, a critical voice is getting short shrift in those talks: academics who have spent their lives studying AI.&nbsp;

Many told him that “academic expertise was being ignored in Washington,” he said during an interview this week.&nbsp;

To fill in that perceived gap, Khanna is hosting next week a roundtable with dozens of academics to explore how AI will impact the workforce, elections, education and mental health — and to consider ways for Congress to step in.&nbsp;

The congressman said the event is meant to be in part a “corrective” to the discussions already underway in Washington, which he said have relied too heavily on tech industry expertise.&nbsp;

“I wanted to assemble a group of the leading minds in AI, technology, economics, ethics to bring some objectivity [about] the way forward … [rather than] technology leaders at corporations telling us how to regulate technology,” he said.

The House session is expected to feature a slew of academic heavyweights, including Stanford University’s Fei-Fei Li and Andrew Ng, Duke University’s Nita Farahany and Harvard Law School’s Noah Feldman and Larry Lessig. The Teamsters’ Cassandra Ogren and science writer Ted Chiang are also slated to attend the event next Thursday.

Some participants, including Stanford’s Li and Ng and Deborah Raji, have recently <a href="https://hai.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/2023-09/Fei-Fei-Li-Senate-Testimony.pdf">testified on Capitol Hill</a> or attended a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/13/senate-ai-hearing-musk-zuckerburg-schumer/">closed-door AI forum</a> of Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). But Khanna said he heard from many who said they felt shut out in Washington.&nbsp;

Khanna said the goal is partly to “spark” more interest in advancing AI legislation in the House, whose top leaders have not focused as much on the issue as in the Senate.&nbsp;

While Kevin McCarthy, the former House speaker, had shown interest in working across the aisle on AI legislation, “since his departure there's really been nothing,” Khanna added.&nbsp;

House leaders have held numerous AI hearings in recent months, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has only <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/26/what-speaker-mike-johnson-means-silicon-valley/">spoken sparingly about the topic</a> since taking over the role.&nbsp;

“I think his hands are full with just trying to keep [the] government open, but we’re going to invite him and [House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.)] to the forum,” Khanna said.

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/09/schumer-previews-plan-tackle-ai-elections-privacy/">Echoing Schumer and other Senate leaders</a>, Khanna said Congress should act most urgently to tackle concerns about AI exacerbating election misinformation.&nbsp;

But he’s also planning to use the roundtable to explore more long-term challenges, such as how to ensure workers will benefit from AI developments equitably.&nbsp;

“There needs to be thought about how AI cannot just increase productivity but increase the economic prospects for workers,” Khanna said.&nbsp;

Khanna said the event will help inform legislation he’s developing to alter the tax code so that companies are incentivized to provide equity to all their employees.

Khanna said offering tax credits could encourage companies that adopt AI to give their workers more of the profit that stems from it.

He’s also looking at ways to get workers more involved in how companies implement AI, including creating fresh membership requirements for companies’ boards.

“Any legislation on this is going to have to be bipartisan to get any chance of passing in this cycle and so the hope is that some of those proposals may get Republican support,” he said.

Elizabeth Kelly to lead the U.S. AI Safety Institute

Demetrius Freeman

Elizabeth Kelly will head the U.S. AI Safety Institute, a new initiative housed within the National Institute of Standards and Technology that will evaluate advanced AI models under President Biden’s executive order, my colleague Cat Zakrzewski reports for The Technology 202.

Kelly previously served as the special assistant to the president for economic policy and was a point person on key sections of the executive order that focused on workers, the economy and AI safety, according to a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans.

“Elizabeth is the kind of person who gets things done,” the official said. “She’s going to go in there and build a start-up from the ground up, even without congressional appropriations.”

Lawmakers<a href="https://www.young.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/young-leads-effort-to-ensure-us-leadership-in-ai-innovation"> have called for</a> an additional $10 million in funding to establish the institute. Elham Tabassi, who has led NIST’s development of the AI Risk Management Framework, was named the institute’s chief technology officer.

<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-07/biden-poised-to-restrict-americans-personal-data-going-to-china?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=share&amp;utm_campaign=twitter?sref=3qGOTMF4" target="_blank">Biden poised to limit American personal data going to China (Bloomberg News)</a>

<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/07/us/politics/china-iran-arrests-export-controls.html" target="_blank">Two cases aim to cut off China and Iran from U.S. technology (New York Times)</a>

<a href="https://www.wsj.com/tech/to-protect-teens-on-social-media-new-york-targets-the-algorithms-8b5feaae?mod=tech_lead_story" target="_blank">States crack down on social media for teens: ‘There are no guardrails’ (Wall Street Journal)</a>

<a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/meta-challenges-supervisory-fee-eu-online-content-rules-2024-02-07/" target="_blank">Meta challenges supervisory fee for E.U. online content rules (Reuters)</a>

<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahemerson/2024/02/07/openais-lobbyists-are-targeting-the-pentagon-and-other-defense-agencies/?sh=6f6e22dc3726" target="_blank">OpenAI’s lobbyists are targeting the Pentagon and other defense agencies (Forbes)</a>

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/08/tiktok-remove-data-criticism-gaza/" target="_blank">TikTok removes feature that critics used to study Israel-Gaza war videos (By Drew Harwell)</a>

<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/07/despite-outages-bluesky-gets-nearly-800k-new-users-in-its-first-day-open-to-the-public/" target="_blank">Bluesky gets nearly 800,000 new users in its first day open to the public, despite outages (TechCrunch)</a>

<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-02-07/ftc-knocks-microsoft-over-activision-blizzard-layoffs-in-court" target="_blank">FTC dings Microsoft over Activision Blizzard layoffs in court (Bloomberg News)</a>

<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/rfk-jr-presidential-campaign-online/?mbid=social_twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_brand=wired&amp;utm_social-type=owned" target="_blank">Why RFK Jr. is suddenly everywhere online (Wired)</a>

The Senate Finance Committee <a href="https://www.finance.senate.gov/hearings/artificial-intelligence-and-health-care-promise-and-pitfalls">holds a hearing</a>, “Artificial Intelligence and Health Care: Promise and Pitfalls,” Thursday at 10 a.m.

FTC Chair Lina Khan speaks at the DCN Next Summit <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events/2024/02/chair-lina-m-khan-conversation-sara-fischer-axios-dcn-next-summit">event</a>, Friday at 9:30 a.m.

This moment between Jalen Duren and Walker Kessler. 😂😂😂 #jalenduren #walkerkessler #nba #pistons #jazz #foryou 

That’s all for today — thank you so much for joining us! Make sure to tell others to subscribe to&nbsp;<a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/34a2dca/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a/60ff0f119bbc0f0fbe6fbd53/60/74/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a">The </a><a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/34a2dca/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a/60ff0f119bbc0f0fbe6fbd53/61/74/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a">Technology</a><a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/34a2dca/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a/60ff0f119bbc0f0fbe6fbd53/62/74/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a"> </a><a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/34a2dca/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a/60ff0f119bbc0f0fbe6fbd53/63/74/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a">202</a><a href="https://s2.washingtonpost.com/34a2dca/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a/60ff0f119bbc0f0fbe6fbd53/64/74/613f4bb19d2fda262757cd9a"> here</a>. Get in touch with Cristiano (via <a href="mailto:cristiano.lima@washpost.com">email</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/viaCristiano">social media</a>) and Will (via <a href="mailto:will.oremus@washpost.com">email</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/willoremus">social media</a>) for tips, feedback or greetings!

Lehigh University, BA in Political Science

Lehigh University, MA in Political Science

 Cristiano Lima-Strong is a tech policy reporter and author of The Washington Post's Technology 202 newsletter, focusing on the intersection of tech, politics and policy. His coverage focuses on privacy and children’s online safety. He previously served as a senior web producer, breaking news reporter and tech policy reporter for Politico.

Cristiano Lima-Strong

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