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‘Profound Risk’: Urgent Bipartisan Call for Intervention Into Growing AI Technology, Biden Remains Crickets

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The term “artificial intelligence” (AI) first coined in 1955, today refers to advanced analysis and logic-based techniques, including machine (computer) learning, to interpret events, support and automate decisions, and take actions; as opposed to the stuff of science fiction movies in which humanoids destroy mankind.

At least not yet.

As the rapid development of AI technology continues, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are calling for congressional intervention in controversial technology. In addition, as reported by Fox News, a letter signed by Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and other tech giants cited “profound risks to society and humanity,” and called for a six-month pause to advanced AI developments.

The letter also said:

Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.

And the response from the Biden administration? (Cue the crickets.)

Since its release last year, Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT has prompted rivals to accelerate developing similar large language models and companies to integrate generative AI models into their products — in large part leading to warnings in both Congress and from the tech-expert signatories to the previously mentioned letter.

The letter warned that at this stage, no one “can understand, predict, or reliably control” the powerful new tools developed in AI labs. Tech experts cited “risks of propaganda and lies spread through AI-generated articles that look real,” as well as the long-held belief — which we’re already seeing come to fruition from complex assembly lines to fast-food restaurants — in the ability of AI programs to outperform workers and make jobs obsolete.

Despite the chirping of crickets emanating from the Biden White House, congressional Republicans and Democrats appear to stand on common ground — a feat in and of itself, these days — in calling for oversight of the rapidly developing technology and its potential impact on the future.

Here’s the thing: It isn’t necessary for proverbial everyday Americans to understand, much less fully grasp, AI and the threats it might very well pose, and therein lies the potential problem for society as a whole — to the benefit of those who might use it in nefarious ways.

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds (S.D.), leader of the Senate AI Caucus, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday:

I think what you have to do is, to identify what is not allowed in terms of ethics and illegal activities, whether it is AI or not — you impose on AI activities the same level of ethics and privacy that you do for other competencies today.

Across the aisle, Michigan Democrat Sen. Gary Peters said the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which he chairs, recently held a hearing on the “pros and cons” of AI technology.

I intend to have a series of hearings in Homeland Security and Government Affairs taking up AI and what we should be thinking about.

On the House side, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), a leader in the efforts to crack down on Big Tech, also urged Congress to intervene, telling Fox:

With the emergence of AI comes both opportunity and challenges. We have seen the impact and consequences of a decade of inaction on Big Tech. Congress cannot afford to be caught sleeping at the wheel again.

AI has great promise but left unscrutinized could be used to spread propaganda, dangerously restructure our economy, and increase the size of current Big Tech monopolies.

Finally, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), sent a letter to tech company leaders last week calling for them to consider the safety of children when rolling out AI systems such as chatbots, suggesting that an agency could be created to regulate the relatively restriction-free AI industry “in the long term.” For now, however, Bennet said these companies should police themselves. Uh-huh, I’m sure that’ll happen.

Bennet also urged Congress to step in:

I think we do have a role to play. In the long run, I think what we could do is set up, you know, an agency here. They can negotiate on behalf of the American people, so we can actually have a negotiation about privacy… In the near term, I think it’s going to be important for tech to police itself.

So What About that ‘Profound Risk’?

According to Cyber Insights 2023, one of the most visible areas of malicious AI usage likely to evolve in 2023 is the criminal use of deepfakes — “artificial media produced using deep learning techniques and a portmanteau of ‘deep learning’ and ‘fake.’ Deepfakes replace features on one image with those of another.”

While deepfakes have been around since the 1990s, they’ve increasingly become more realistic and thus more popular in usage.

Here’s more, via Cyber Insights:

The pace of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption is increasing throughout industry and society. This is because governments, civil organizations and industry all recognize greater efficiency and lower costs available from the use of AI-generated automation. The process is irreversible.

What is still unknown is the degree of danger that may be introduced when adversaries start to use AI as an effective weapon of attack rather than a tool for beneficial improvement. That day is coming and will begin to emerge from 2023.

[…]

As the use of AI grows, so the nature of its purpose changes. Originally, it was primarily used in business to detect changes; that is, things that had already happened. In the future, it will be used to predict what is likely to happen and these predictions will often be focused on people (staff and customers).

Solving the long-known weaknesses in AI will become more important. Bias in AI can lead to wrong decisions, while failures in learning can lead to no decisions. Since the targets of such AI will be people, the need for AI to be complete and unbiased becomes imperative.

That’s enough of “the weeds.”

The Bottom Line

It’s clear that the potential risk of AI in the wrong hands is growing. As a limited-government guy, I’m not fond of government over-regulation, much less intervention in the private sector, and I’m not yet sure if I’d support it in response to the development of AI technology.

Hell, given what we’ve seen from the U.S. Intelligence Community over the last several years, it’s anyone’s guess where the Deep State’s interests lie regarding artificial intelligence.

All of the above said, I’m still a fan of “Trust but verify,” and I always will be. So should you.

What are your thoughts on the issue, RedStaters?

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

Watch as AOC Gets Hilariously Punked by Libs of TikTok as They Pose for Photo Together

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RedState reported a week ago on how “Libs of TikTok” founder Chaya Raichik recently visited Capitol Hill in order to try and confront Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) over an inflammatory lie AOC told about her during a February House Oversight Committee hearing on “Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story.”

To quickly recap, AOC said during the hearing that Raichik’s claims about how Boston Children’s Hospital was providing so-called gender-affirming care including hysterectomies to minors were lies that brought “incitement” of violence upon the hospital:

Ms Ocasio-Cortez asked Twitter’s former head of safety Yoel Roth why the account was not suspended “despite inspiring a bomb threat due to the right-wing incitement of violence against trans Americans.” Mr Roth said that “regrettably” the account remained active.

The only falsehood, however, was AOC’s, as the hospital had already gone on record with a webpage boasting of their services.

In essence, AOC smeared Raichik, and during her initial visit to D.C., the only person Raichik got to talk to about the ethics complaint she’d filed was one of AOC’s handlers, and even that was very brief as the handler scurried off and never returned.

This time around when Raichik visited, she bumped into AOC and posed for a picture with her… before letting her know who she was and that she had lied about her and was being hit with an ethics complaint.

Watch below as AOC makes a cowardly move by again insulting Raichik in calling her a “transphobe” before running away instead of addressing the substance of her false allegations about Raichik and admitting she was wrong.

Note: The short version of the clip is at the beginning. A longer version of her confrontation with AOC is towards the end:

It just absolutely never fails with these people. They get to say whatever they want to as powerful lawmakers about private citizens no matter how false, and then when those citizens fight back, the lawmakers run away just as fast as they can.

This is about par for the course for AOC, who uses Twitter and her perches on various committees as ways to bully people without having to address them directly. And yet on the rare occasion when one of them has the nerve to call her out directly, she plays the victim.

If your words are the truth, then stick around, stand your ground and defend what you said. If you can’t do that and instead flee the scene to avoid having to explain, you’re just proving your opponent’s point, which is exactly what happened here.

As I’ve often said, Democrats usually at some point get around to revealing who they really are, which AOC perfectly demonstrated with her reaction to being confronted by Raichik.

It’s sad in a way that she had to be punked in order for Raichik to get her attention, but here we are.

Flashback: AOC Tries to Further Explain Wacky ‘Menstruating People’ Comment and I Have Thoughts

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Deb Haaland’s Grilling by Congress Reveals What a Clown Car the Biden Admin Is Running

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We’ve seen just how incompetent and bad some of the nominees that the Biden administration has put forth are. They’ve been so bad they can’t even answer basic questions they should know for their position, such as FAA nominee Phil Washington and judicial nominee Kato Crews.

However, the problem, as we’ve also seen, is that it’s not just the nominees, it’s the folks who are already in their positions who are beyond incompetent. We see how bad White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is every day at the daily briefing — she never answers anything and is always passing the buck to some other agency to answer the question so she doesn’t have to. We’ve seen the incompetence of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) lit him up over his incompetence at his job on Tuesday, with Mayorkas even refusing to admit that there was a “crisis” at the border. Then, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) trapped him into responding to what was an “assault weapon” and Hawley nailed him on his lack of knowledge about the influx of Chinese nationals coming across the border.

But the problem stems from the top, with Joe Biden not picking good people for the jobs. So Mayorkas isn’t the only Cabinet Secretary who seems out to lunch when it comes to understanding how to properly do his job and not just be a political hack. That became abundantly clear when Biden Interior Secretary Deb Haaland was also questioned by Congress.

Haaland was asked something she should have been on sure ground on — the Green New Deal — something which she co-sponsored when she was in Congress. Yet when Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) asked her whether she knew that it banned fracking and clean coal, she appeared not to understand that, saying it was “2023” and she “sponsored a lot of bills when she was in Congress.”

I guess that’s an excuse for not knowing what was in the horrible bill that she supported that now she appears to want to run away from.

Reschenthaler also had to tell her that the Green New Deal bans oil and gas leasing. So he asked her if she still would support it, knowing this now. Yet, she still wouldn’t reject it.

Reschenthaler also got Haaland to admit that reliance on electric vehicles would make the United States dependent on China, something the Biden team has no problem pushing.

“Electric vehicles and renewables are heavily dependent on critical minerals, correct?” Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Penn., asked Haaland during a Tuesday House Appropriations Committee hearing.

“Yes,” Haaland replied. Reschenthaler went on to tell Haaland that China “accounts for 63% of the world’s rare earth mining.”

“By deductive reasoning that would mean that electric vehicles and renewables deepen our reliance on China, correct?”

“Yes, okay,” Haaland again responded.

Yet at a time you would think that the logical response (logical if you didn’t want to kowtow to China and you wanted American independence) would be to increase our own domestic capacity or alternative sources, the Biden team is trying to cut domestic mining of vital minerals.

The hearing came shortly after her department shut down mining activity on a vast swath of land in the Minnesota wilderness, as well as land in South Dakota, said to be sitting atop a mass of critical mineral deposits.

In addition to the Department of the Interior, the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency has blocked certain mining in Alaska.

In Arizona, mining has similarly faced threats from Democratic lawmakers.

Her staff is now trying to say that she wasn’t admitting what she admitted. Uh, yeah. sure.

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), former Trump Interior Secretary, asked her some more simple questions and proves that he knows what he was talking about while she seems not to know or understand anything that he was saying. The comparison is striking. He asks her an incredibly important question: What is she doing to fast-track our areas for critical minerals so we’re not dependent on China or Russia? Her response is just more from the clown car of ignorance.

Perhaps the most offensive remarks — and there were a lot where the ignorance was just stunning — was when Haaland was being questioned by Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) who asked where would she prefer to get oil and gas: from American energy production or importing energy from countries like Venezuela and Russia. That would seem to be a simple lay-up question for Haaland. But not so much. She couldn’t even agree with that with a simple yes, which is frightening.

“I appreciate the question,” was all she would say.

Hoeven asked if she would admit they have restricted energy on public lands, and her response was we’re working to make sure it’s “balanced.” Translation: restricting production for their climate change agenda.

Haaland’s testimony shows just what trouble we are in, with these people in charge.

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Watch: Sen. Katie Britt Blows Lid off Garland DOJ’s Deception on Protection for SCOTUS Justices

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It’s not uncommon for freshman members of the House and Senate to spend their first year in Congress getting to know the ropes and the lay of the land while not wanting to ruffle too many feathers.

Fortunately for Republicans, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) understands that you can (and should) seek to make waves when the situation warrants it, as evidenced by her smooth takedown of Dept. of Justice Attorney General Merrick Garland over the deception the department has shown under his so-called leadership on the issue of protecting Supreme Court Justices before, during, and after a majority voted to overturn Roe v. Wade last June.

It all went down during a Tuesday budget hearing where Garland was asking for more money to the tune of $21 million “to pay for 42 additional deputy marshals in the next fiscal year”:

At the budget hearing Tuesday, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) displayed enlargements of training materials for the marshals’ protection mission showing that the deputies were strongly discouraged from making arrests unless they were essential to protecting the justices or their families. A spokesperson for Britt said her office obtained them from a whistleblower “concerned about the attorney general’s misleading testimony before the Judiciary Committee.”

“Avoid, unless absolutely necessary, criminal enforcement action involving the protest or protestors, particularly on public space,” one bullet point from the training presentation said.

While Justice Department officials have repeatedly declined to comment on whether they consider the anti-protest statute constitutional, the training materials suggest that DOJ lawyers concluded that enforcing the statute against ordinary protests aimed at the justices could run afoul of the First Amendment.

“The ‘intent of influencing any judge’ language thus logically goes to threats and intimidation, not 1st [Amendment] protected protest activities,” the training materials say, calling any arrests a “last resort to present physical harm to the Justices and/or their families.”

Britt said the slides undercut Garland’s earlier claim that the marshals “have full authority to arrest people under any federal statute, including that federal statute.”

Under Britt’s questioning, Garland denied being aware of the training materials she confronted him on and told Britt he would not “amend” his earlier statements where he said the marshals had the authority to arrest leftist agitators under U.S. Code, Title 18, Section 1507 which states that:

Whoever, with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty, pickets or parades in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer, or with such intent uses any sound-truck or similar device or resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Nothing in this section shall interfere with or prevent the exercise by any court of the United States of its power to punish for contempt.

In response to Garland’s refusal to amend prior statements, Britt told him that “It’s clear the marshals were given a different directive and I would ask you to look into that, please.”

Watch:

The full exchange can be watched below:

It’s become more than clear over just the last few months alone that Biden’s Dept. of Justice cares more about blatant partisanship and preserving woke narratives while punishing innocent citizens including concerned parents along the way while at the same time routinely protecting so-called “protesters” on the left who deliberately break the law.

Hats off to Britt for not only calling Garland out but also for bringing the receipts to back it up and exposing his dangerously duplicitous nature in the process.

That’s how it’s done. More, please.

Flashback: Merrick Garland Strangely Silent After Indiana School Board Member Tries to Attack Parent at Meeting

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As TikTok’s (and China’s) Influence Continues to Rise, Silicon Valley Starts Fighting Back

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Despite the warnings from security experts, the government, and seemingly everyone in between, the viral social media and video app TikTok has continued to grow at a wild pace in the U.S.

With roughly 150 million users in the U.S, the app’s popularity has continued to rise, leading to what some are calling a data privacy nightmare. In fact, it’s so problematic that Congress will be hearing from the CEO of the app this week.

When TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before Congress on Thursday, he plans to unveil new internal data that suggests the popular video-sharing app is far more enmeshed in Americans’ daily lives than anyone realizes.

TikTok currently says about 100 million people in the U.S. are regular users of the app. But when Chew testifies before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, he will say that number has now reached 150 million, according to a senior Democratic strategist advising TikTok.

That 50% jump in the number of monthly active users in the U.S. suggests the app has become even more entrenched in the U.S. over the nearly three years that Washington — under two presidential administrations — has grappled with how to rein it in.

Despite the sheer amount of personal data the app collects and the fact that the company’s servers are located in China, the app just hits all the right pleasure centers of the brain. It’s viral content with an algorithm that constantly adjusts to bring us the content we most want to see, the videos are short enough that our attention span doesn’t run out before the content ends, and it’s easy to go from one video to the next without having to search.

It’s addiction made easy, but it comes at a pretty big cost. State and federal government agencies are banning the app on government-issued devices because it sniffs around for a lot of personal information not just from your device, but potentially the specifics of the network you’re using at the time. It’s a big risk that Congress and the White House are taking notice of.

But, it isn’t just Congress that is taking note, either. Apparently, Silicon Valley is coming together to push back against China’s influence in the social media space – and the tech industry overall.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a group of “Silicon Valley executives, including investor Peter Thiel, and Washington lawmakers are quietly mobilizing against China’s involvement in the U.S. tech industry.” That’s a big move in the industry, which for years has been friendly with the Chinese.

A lot of American companies, in fact, have been extremely friendly with China because of the size of the Chinese market. But such a relationship has costs – censorship and demands for data are often the biggest sacrifices made to get access into the Chinese market.

And that’s not just the tech industry, either. Disney frequently bends the knee to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, as does the NBA. The result is almost always a compromised product. But if Silicon Valley is fighting back, that is a big step in pushing Chinese influence out of some of our key industries.

More, from WSJ:

“We’re priming Congress to be ready for this testimony,” said Mr. [Jacob] Helberg. He and others attending the dinner have been encouraging lines of questioning about TikTok. He said he views TikTok as “the most potent espionage operation that China has ever carried out against the U.S.”

A spokeswoman for TikTok didn’t comment on the group, but said TikTok has never shared U.S. user data with Beijing. “The Chinese government has never asked us to share U.S. user data, nor would we, if asked,” she said.

The call for TikTok’s Chinese owners to sell their stakes represents the most forceful demand of the app yet from the Biden administration. The U.S. government, the European Commission, Canada, Belgium and more than 30 U.S. states have banned TikTok on government-issued devices. Federal Bureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray said in early March that TikTok “screams out with national security concerns.”

Helberg, mentioned in the except, is described as a “former Google policy adviser who is the newest member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressional research and advisory panel.”

We don’t know if TikTok will ever be fully separated from the Chinese government, but if the U.S. government and Silicon Valley are teaming up to fight the Chinese, it’s a positive step forward.

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