Musk says AI ‘referee’ needed after meeting US lawmakers

American technology leaders including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai met with lawmakers at Capitol Hill yesterday for a closed-door forum that focused on regulating artificial intelligence.
Lawmakers are grappling with how to mitigate the dangers of the emerging technology, which has experienced a boom in investment and consumer popularity since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.
“It’s important for us to have a referee,” Musk told reporters, adding that a regulator was needed “to ensure that companies take actions that are safe and in the general interest of the public.”
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker praised the discussion, saying all the participants agreed “the government has a regulatory role” but crafting legislation would be a challenge.
Lawmakers want safeguards against potentially dangerous deepfakes such as bogus videos, election interference and attacks on critical infrastructure.
“Today, we begin an enormous and complex and vital undertaking: building a foundation for bipartisan AI policy that Congress can pass,” US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said in opening remarks. “Congress must play a role, because without Congress we will neither maximise AI’s benefits, nor minimise its risks.”
Other attendees included Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, and AFL-CIO labour federation President Liz Shuler.
Schumer, who discussed AI with Musk in April, said attendees would talk “about why Congress must act, what questions to ask, and how to build a consensus for safe innovation.”