Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has spent the past year raising the alarm about the need for lawmakers to regulate artificial intelligence.
Just last week, tech billionaire Elon Musk, a Donald Trump backer, shared a parody deepfake video to his nearly 200 million followers on X featuring audio of Vice President Kamala Harris saying things she had never said.
Without guardrails for using artificial intelligence to depict political candidates, Schumer and others fear it could lead to a Wild West situation where deepfakes of Harris, Trump and others would proliferate in the media landscape — and undermine voters’ faith and trust in candidates, elections and American democracy.
With the window for legislative action quickly closing this calendar year and control of the chamber up for grabs, the powerful New York Democrat is eyeing must-pass bills as a vehicle to get something done on the fast-moving technology he’s labeled a threat to democracy and national security.
Schumer hinted to NBC News that two deepfake election bills could be attached to the must-pass funding bill needed to avert a government shutdown at the end of September — roughly a month before Election Day. And the majority leader said that the massive fiscal year 2025 defense policy bill that needs to be passed by Dec. 31 likely will include national security-related AI legislation as well.
Posted by John3262005