[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                      WHITE HOUSE OVERREACH ON AI

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

               SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBERSECURITY, INFORMATION
                 TECHNOLOGY, AND GOVERNMENT INNOVATION

                                 of the

                         COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                           AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             MARCH 21, 2024

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-96

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
  
  
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]  


                       Available on: govinfo.gov
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                               __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
55-220 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     
                            
               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Ro Khanna, California
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Shontel Brown, Ohio
Byron Donalds, Florida               Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Robert Garcia, California
William Timmons, South Carolina      Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Greg Casar, Texas
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Dan Goldman, New York
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Nick Langworthy, New York            Ayanna Pressley, Massachesetts
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mike Waltz, Florida

                                 ------                                
                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
       Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
                      Peter Warren, Senior Advisor
                Lauren Lombardo, Deputy Policy Director
             Raj Bharwani, Senior Professional Staff Member
      Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                  Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051
                                 ------                                

 Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government 
                               Innovation

                 Nancy Mace, South Carolina, Chairwoman
William Timmons, South Carolina      Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia 
Tim Burchett, Tennessee                  Ranking Minority Member
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Ro Khanna, California
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Nick Langworthy, New York            Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Eric Burlison, Missouri              Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Vacancy                              Ayanna Pressley, Massachesetts
Vacancy                              Vacancy
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                                                                   Page

Hearing held on March 21, 2024...................................     1

                               Witnesses

                              ----------                              

Mr. Adam Thierer, Resident Senior Fellow, Technology & 
  Innovation, R Street Institute
Oral Statement...................................................     5
Ms. Jennifer Huddleston, Technology Policy Research Fellow, Cato 
  Institute
Oral Statement...................................................     7
Mr. Neil Chilson, Head of AI Policy, The Abundance Institute
Oral Statement...................................................     8
Dr. Nicol Turner Lee (minority witness), Senior Fellow, 
  Governance Studies and Director, Center for Technology 
  Innovation, Brookings Institution
Oral Statement...................................................    10

Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are 
  available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document 
  Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

  * No additional documents were submitted for this hearing.

 
                      WHITE HOUSE OVERREACH ON AI

                             ----------                              


                        Thursday, March 21, 2024

              U.S. House of Representatives

               Committee on Oversight and Accountability

 Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government 
                               Innovation

                                           Washington, D.C.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Nancy Mace 
[Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Mace, Timmons, Burchett, Burlison, 
Connolly, Lynch, and Pressley.
    Ms. Mace. Good morning, everyone. The Subcommittee on 
Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government 
Innovation will come to order. Welcome, everyone.
    Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any 
time.
    I would like to now ask unanimous consent for 
Representative Don Beyer from Virginia to be waived on to the 
Subcommittee for today's hearing for the purpose of asking 
questions. So, without objection, so ordered.
    I will now recognize myself for the purpose of making an 
opening statement.
    Good morning. Turn that frown upside down. It is going to 
be OK. Last October 30, the White House released a monumentally 
lengthy executive order on artificial intelligence, and the EO 
is not just long, it is broad. It corrals dozens of Federal 
agencies into a massive posse that is to go out and ride herd 
on every aspect of this emerging technology. But why the 
stampede? We are only just starting to grasp how AI can help 
and also harm humanity. That is why Congress is moving 
cautiously in this space.
    We already have a plethora of laws in which AI uses are 
subject, ranging from anti-discrimination to consumer 
protection statutes, and unnecessary new laws could stifle AI 
innovation, slowing the arrival of life-enhancing and 
lifesaving breakthroughs. Not to mention, we do not want China 
on our heels, and we do not want to stifle innovation for the 
private sector or for our government agencies, especially in 
defense. That is why Congress is proceeding with a measured 
first do no harm approach. Where AI applications are not 
captured under an existing law, we need to close these 
loopholes. That is why I introduced a bill recently to ensure 
the distribution of nonconsensual pornography is not immune 
from criminal prosecution just because it has been altered via 
an AI deepfake process.
    But Congress wisely has not authorized the Administration 
to go out and regulate AI differently than other technologies. 
But this executive order does so anyway and invokes the 
emergency powers of the Defense Production Act, or DPA, to 
require AI developers to notify the government if they are even 
considering developing new AI systems. It also mandates they 
regularly hand over highly sensitive proprietary data, like 
testing results, to the Commerce Department. What does this 
have to do with defense production?
    The DPA gives the President extraordinary powers to ensure 
the supply of critical goods in time of war or national 
emergency, but we are not at war today, and if artificial 
intelligence is an emergency, it is not a temporary one. AI is 
not going to go away anytime soon, so the new executive powers 
this EO asserts have no logical sunset.
    The bottom line is that this use of the DPA appears to be 
executive overreach and, quite frankly, illegal. That is the 
view of the attorneys general of 20 states, including my own 
home state of South Carolina. These AGs last month wrote a 
letter to the Commerce Secretary that argued the reporting 
regime in the EO lacks legal authority because the DPA allows 
for the Federal Government to promote and prioritize 
production, not to gatekeep and regulate emerging technologies. 
I want to thank my Attorney General, Alan Wilson, for stepping 
up to the plate and being a part of this letter.
    What is more, the gatekeeping in this EO seems more likely 
to harm than help our national defense. What is the biggest 
national security concern around AI? It is the risk that we 
relinquish our current lead in AI to China, and that could have 
catastrophic implications for our military preparedness. But 
requiring potential new AI developers to share critical data 
about their most valuable assets with the government could 
scare away would-be innovators and impede more ChatGPT-type 
breakthroughs. Not only that, but they might take their 
technology elsewhere, and we want the best AI developers, the 
best AI programmers, the best AI tech right here in the United 
States.
    Also, how will the government protect that data it gets 
from AI firms? The EO could risk national security by mandating 
the creation of what Brookings Institution fellow, John 
Villasenor, calls a target list for any geopolitical adversary 
that might want to engage in cyber espionage or launch a large-
scale cyberattack on U.S. AI computing infrastructure. He notes 
the government's poor record of preventing the exfiltration of 
data from Federal computer systems by malicious actors, 
including foreign enemies.
    To be clear, the government does need to be proactive with 
respect to artificial intelligence. The executive branch needs 
to harness AI to strengthen national defense, bolster homeland 
security, and improve the administration of benefit programs. 
That is why I am glad that the EO contains numerous provisions 
to strengthen the government's own AI workforce and to enhance 
the government's ability to contract with private sector AI 
providers. But as the rubber hits the road on this EO, with the 
implementation deadlines already having begun to kick in, I 
look forward to hearing from our panelists today about where 
they believe it exceeds the President's legitimate authority 
and where it could impede American innovation.
    With that, I will now yield to Ranking Member Connolly for 
his opening statement.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you. AI helps doctors optimize medical 
treatments, scientists predict potential natural disasters, and 
Federal workers manage water supplies, and yet we know very 
well every scientific and technological advancement comes with 
its own risks. The Biden-Harris executive order on AI, the 
first of its kind ever, elegantly balances innovation with 
equity and potential with pragmatism. AI has already 
demonstrated massive and consequential effects on workforces 
and economies around the globe. The Biden-Harris executive 
order sets America on a path to lead the world in ethical, 
equitable, and transparent use of AI.
    As we enter the second hearing exploring the Biden-Harris 
EO, it is good to remember what our previous witnesses 
testified unanimously. One Republican witness, ``The AI 
executive order and OMB memo are important steps that focused 
on AI safety, investment, talent, and leadership, and are 
critical for America to lead in AI innovation and governance, 
but the executive branch cannot achieve this goal fully without 
Congress.'' Another Republican Majority witness: ``In sum, the 
AI executive order and OMB memo have taken a big first step, 
but it is only one step in a longer journey. Congress must now 
kick in.'' Another: ``The executive order recognizes the 
importance of the AI Risk Management Framework developed by the 
National Institute of Standards and Technology. We encourage 
the Administration to ensure that framework anchors the 
government's risk management efforts.'' These quotes all come 
from Majority-picked witnesses and agree that the Biden-Harris 
executive order promotes safe and responsible AI and puts us on 
the right path for a strong AI future in the United States, but 
they also recognize Congress has more work to do.
    Just last week, we had a hearing on deepfakes and learned 
how some AI training data sets contain known images of child 
sex abuse materials. As a result, some AI models trained off 
this data can further perpetuate the creation of additional 
terrible and shocking content. This example is just one way AI 
technology can cause harm when we allow it to go unregulated 
and unchecked.
    So, how should we respond? As we have noted, the Biden-
Harris EO initiated a whole-of-government approach and private 
sector involvement to establish the United States as a global 
leader in ethical AI. Within the Federal Government, the EO 
directed more than 50 Federal agencies to take more than 100 
different actions to guarantee responsible Federal use in the 
over 700 use cases already implemented across 24 Federal 
agencies. Every agency should now have a designated chief AI 
officer and internal AI governance board, which should work 
cohesively and collaboratively to manage the risks of AI while 
prudently removing barriers to innovation.
    In addition to the EO, President Biden established a 
Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights to guide equitable uses of 
AI across the public and private sectors. It was another key 
step to ensure that every new technology comes with guarantees 
of civil rights, civil liberties, privacy, and equal 
opportunity. The blueprint also included private industry input 
from companies like Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, 
Microsoft, and OpenAI, each of whom committed to strengthening 
safety, security, and transparency as they proceed to innovate 
new AI algorithms and explore potential use cases for the 
technology.
    As the Federal Government continues to explore AI, we 
should look to partner with private sector partners to foster 
continued innovation and adoption of a secure and trustworthy 
AI. I plan to introduce a bill that responsibly accelerates the 
use of AI by our civil servants who are entrusted with carrying 
out our public-facing agencies' missions. AI must empower 
workers, not replace them. We can achieve this future if we 
build a robust educational foundation and one that benefits 
both government and the private sector. Congress must invest in 
programs that educate and train the next generation of skilled 
AI workers, which the Chair has just mentioned, and they need 
to thrive in the tech economy. Both the private and public 
sectors will need digital native workers who are steeped in the 
practices needed to put appropriate guardrails in place to help 
AI achieve its goals.
    Some of my colleagues and witnesses here today will say 
that regulation limits innovation and stifles growth. It can, 
but let me remind you of what our previous witness, Dr. Rumman 
Chowdhury, a Responsible AI fellow at Harvard, said, ``Brakes 
help you drive faster.'' This country has a strong history of 
creating rules of the road for innovative industries in ways 
that catalyze growth and foster trust in consumers. We look 
forward to exploring how best we can achieve that balance, and 
I look forward to today's hearing. Thank you.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Connolly. I am pleased to 
introduce our witnesses for today's hearing. Our first witness 
is Mr. Adam Thierer, Senior Fellow for the technology and 
innovation team at the R Street Institute. Our second witness 
is Ms. Jennifer Huddleston, Technology Policy Research Fellow 
at the Cato Institute. Our third witness is Mr. Neil Chilson, 
head of the AI policy at the Abundance Institute, and our 
fourth witness today is Dr. Nicol Turner Lee, Senior Fellow for 
Governance Studies and Director of the Center for Technology 
Innovation at Brookings Institution. Welcome, everyone. We are 
pleased to have you this morning.
    Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses will please 
stand and raise their right hands. This is where it gets real.
    Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you 
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help you God?
    [A chorus of ayes.]
    Ms. Mace. Let the record show the witnesses all answered in 
the affirmative. We appreciate all of you being here today and 
look forward to your testimony.
    I would like to remind the witnesses we have read your 
written statements, and they will appear in full in the hearing 
record. Please limit your oral arguments this morning to 5 
minutes. As a reminder, please press the button on the 
microphone in front of you so that it is on, and the Members 
can hear you. When you begin to speak, the light in front of 
you will turn green. After 4 minutes, the light will turn 
yellow. When the red light comes up, your 5 minutes has 
expired, and we would ask that you please wrap up.
    So, I will now recognize Mr. Thierer to please begin your 
opening statement.

                       STATEMENT OF ADAM THIERER

           RESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

                           R STREET INSTITUTE

    Mr. Thierer. Thank you. Chairwoman Mace, Ranking Member 
Connolly, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for 
holding this hearing and for the invitation to appear before 
you. My name is Adam Thierer, and I am a Senior Fellow at the R 
Street Institute where I focus on emerging technology issues. I 
also recently served as Commissioner for the U.S. Chamber of 
Commerce Commission on Artificial Intelligence, 
Competitiveness, Inclusion, and Innovation.
    My message here today boils down to three main points. 
First, it is important to recall the foundational principles 
behind the bipartisan National Framework for Digital Commerce 
that Congress and the Clinton Administration crafted a quarter 
century ago. Freedom to innovate was made America's policy 
default. Lawmakers rejected the inefficient, old regulatory 
models of the analog era, which constrained entrepreneurialism 
and competition. We allowed new digital technologies to be born 
free and to flourish without excessive micromanagement, and 
then we used ongoing multistakeholder efforts and flexible 
regulatory responses to address concerns. Europe took the 
opposite path, and today, heavy-handed technocratic mandates 
have ``regulated its way to last place,'' as a recent Wall 
Street Journal headline observed. In fact, 18 of the 25 largest 
digital technology companies in the world today are U.S. based, 
while it is difficult to name any that are headquartered in 
Europe. While some people have concerns about large technology 
companies today, we should agree that it is better that these 
firms are primarily based here in the United States instead of 
China, Europe, or other countries or continents.
    Further, there is a second point about the connection 
between AI policy and broader national objectives. A strong 
digital technology base is an important source of strength and 
prosperity, so it is essential that our Nation not shoot itself 
in the foot as the next great technological race gets underway 
with China and the rest of the world. Consider this scenario. 
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, it quickly became 
the most rapidly adopted digital technology in history, and 
competing U.S. services from U.S. developers followed quickly. 
Had a Chinese operator launched a major generative AI model 
first, it would have been a Sputnik moment for America. 
Luckily, it is instead foreign nations who are today left 
scratching their heads, wondering how America once again raced 
ahead of them on digital technology. Wise policy choices not 
only strengthen our economy and provide better products and 
jobs, but also bolster our national security and allow our 
values to shape information technology platforms and markets 
globally. We need a national AI policy that is flexible and 
pro-innovation to make sure our firms, workers, and values 
continue to lead the world in this fashion.
    This brings me to the Biden Administration's October 
executive order. This wide-ranging, 100-plus page directive has 
been praised by some as a logical response to congressional 
inaction on AI, but many others have rightly noted that it 
stretches executive authority over emerging technology well 
beyond statutory limits and raises the danger of 
overregulation. For example, the order flips the Defense 
Production Act on its head and converts a 1950's law, meant to 
encourage production, into an expansive regulatory edict 
intended to curtail some forms of algorithmic innovation. 
Twenty state attorneys general recently filed a letter with the 
Department of Commerce noting how the order is ``about 
regulating technological development, not about encouraging the 
production of anything,'' and also objecting to its effort to 
``centralize government control over an emerging technology 
being developed by the private sector.''
    The order also contains open-ended language about taking 
steps to combat algorithmic discrimination and pushes the 
Federal Trade Commission to get more aggressive in policing the 
AI marketplace. These steps open the door to a new regulatory 
regime for AI without any express authority from Congress. 
While other provisions of the order are more reasonable, 
Congress still needs to reassert itself to ensure that 
administrative overreach is curtailed and that agencies adhere 
to the Constitution and their congressionally delegated powers.
    Instead of these arbitrary, excessive mandates, Congress 
needs to craft an AI policy vision that does four things: 
first, it is rooted in a flexible, risk-based framework that 
relies more on ongoing, multistakeholder negotiations and 
evolutionary standards that are more closely matched to rapidly 
changing algorithmic technologies; second, which builds on 
existing government powers on a sectoral basis instead of 
trying to develop an entirely new regulatory superstructure for 
AI; third, which preempts state and local government AI laws 
that create confusing patchworks of conflicting mandates; and 
fourth and most importantly, gives algorithmic entrepreneurs a 
green light and avoids treating AI services as guilty until 
proven innocent as the executive order does.
    In sum, our Nation must create a positive innovation 
culture and avoid trapping our AI innovators in a regulatory 
cage if we hope to prosper economically and ensure a safer, 
more secure technological base. It is essential that we strike 
the right policy balance as we face serious competition from 
China and other nations who are looking to counter America's 
early lead in computational systems and data-driven 
technologies.
    Thank you for holding this hearing and thank you for the 
consideration of my views. I look forward to any questions you 
may have.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. I now recognize Ms. Huddleston to 
begin her opening statement.

                          JENNIFER HUDDLESTON

                   TECHNOLOGY POLICY RESEARCH FELLOW

                             CATO INSTITUTE

    Ms. Huddleston. Thank you, Chair Mace, Ranking Member 
Connolly, and distinguished Members of the Committee on 
Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, 
Information Technology, and Innovation. My name is Jennifer 
Huddleston, and I am a Technology Policy Research Fellow at the 
Cato Institute, where my research focuses primarily on the 
intersection of law and technologies, including issues related 
to the governance of emerging technologies, such as artificial 
intelligence, better known as AI. Therefore, I welcome the 
opportunity to testify today regarding the recent AI executive 
order issued by the Biden Administration.
    In this testimony, I seek to focus on two key points: 
first, how the AI EO represents a significant shift in the U.S. 
approach to AI policy and to technology policy in general; and 
second, how the AI EO raises concerns about appropriate 
separation of powers at a time when Congress is debating the 
most sensible policy framework to consider for governing AI.
    To begin with, the AI EO represents a significant shift 
from a more permissionless approach to general purpose 
technology and technology policy in general, to a more 
permissioned or precautionary approach, such as those more 
commonly found in Europe. While much of the conversation around 
AI has been recently focused on the generative AI products like 
ChatGPT or DALL-E that became popular with consumers in late 
2022, AI and machine learning has been part of our lives for 
far longer than many of us may realize. From tools that help 
detect potential credit card fraud, to our talk-to-text or 
autocompletes on our phones, to various things that help make 
us find better and faster search results, we have all been 
using artificial intelligence far longer than we may realize. 
AI is helping fight wildfires and enabling stroke victims to 
speak again, and it is estimated that AI could increase 
productivity by 1.5 percent per year and global GDP by $7 
trillion over the next decade.
    All of this is to say, while much of the conversation is 
focused on the potential harms of AI, we should not forget the 
benefits as well. In fact, not all uses of AI can be predicted. 
As we have seen with the internet, one of the things that 
really allowed the U.S. to flourish and one of the reasons why 
the light touch approach gave rise to so many of the wonderful 
products that we have today, is that consumers and innovators 
were able to decide what products were the best applications, 
not government bureaucrats.
    While the AI EO may be the most significant AI policy that 
we have seen at an executive level, it is not the first 
executive that has mentioned AI. In fact, both the Trump 
Administration and the Biden Administration had comments on AI 
and the importance that it may serve for economic growth and 
its valuable tool in the future. Notably, the Biden 
Administration's executive order looks less favorably on the 
potential for a less regulatory approach to this technology, 
and it suggests that there is a case for action amongst 
agencies. It nudges agencies in a do-something direction more 
so than prior administrations, particularly in its invocation 
of the Defense Production Act.
    This brings me to the second point today. The AI EO should 
raise significant concerns about appropriate separation of 
powers. Not only does this represent a change in the overall 
approach to technology, it occurs at a time when Congress is 
actively debating this issue and it occurs by executive order, 
while we have seen many committees, including today's hearing, 
on a wide range of topics in both the House and the Senate, 
consider whether or not a further regulatory framework for AI 
is necessary.
    The most notable example of this is the AI EO's use of the 
Defense Production Act to justify its provisions. This law was 
originally designed to provide the executive with authority to 
meet a national security cris, but the AI EO evokes the Defense 
Production Act, not to respond to such a crisis, but, rather, 
to require innovators of AI products, deemed high risk, notify 
the government and submit to government-run red teaming 
regarding the potential risk of their innovation. This 
executive overreach cannot be presumed to have occurred because 
there is a need for immediate action or because there is a lack 
of attention on Congress' part, and the powers that it passes 
on to the administrative state should be considered carefully 
by Congress. As we know, once power is given to the 
administrative state, it is unlikely to be returned.
    The United States' light touch approach to the internet 
helped enabled its global leadership and realize the economic 
potential of this technology in the past years. This has 
benefited both consumers and innovators and entrepreneurs. As 
we encounter our next disruptive technology era with AI, we 
must consider not only the risk, but also the benefits of such 
technology, many of which we may be unable to predict. The 
United States has a chance to distinguish itself from more 
regulatory approaches once again and embrace an approach that 
allows consumers and innovators to use technology to find 
creative solutions to problems and needs.
    I thank you for this opportunity to testify before you, and 
I welcome your questions.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Chilson to begin 
your opening statement.

                       STATEMENT OF NEIL CHILSON

                           HEAD OF AI POLICY

                        THE ABUNDANCE INSTITUTE

    Mr. Chilson. Chair Mace, Ranking Member Connolly, and 
Subcommittee Members, good morning. I am Neil Chilson, the head 
of AI policy at the Abundance Institute. The Abundance 
Institute is a mission-driven, nonprofit (c)(3) dedicated to 
fostering widespread human prosperity by creating an 
environment where emerging technologies, including AI, can 
thrive. Thank you for having me here today to talk about the 
executive order on artificial intelligence.
    The artificial intelligence EO, as noted by the Chair, is 
long. In fact, it is the longest regulatory EO in history. 
According to data from the American Presidency Project, the AI 
EO is 88 times longer than the median executive order. By the 
numbers, it is the third longest executive order in American 
history, but the two EOs that are longer are a 1951 executive 
order containing the entire manual for the military court 
martial procedures and a 1980 EO revising that manual. The AI 
EO is also unusually regulatory because it directs actions by 
dozens of agencies and Federal officials. It mandates 136 
different deliverables, such as reports, guidance documents, 
and dozens of new projects, processes, and plans.
    In short, the AI executive order is unprecedented. Our 
country's history includes many dramatic developments, 
including civil war, mass industrialization, two world wars, 
globalization, and global pandemics, yet no President has ever 
issued such a long and detailed executive order to reorient the 
Federal Government on a policy issue.
    The executive order will generate sweeping activity across 
the Federal Government, redirecting at least tens of millions 
of tax dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours of government 
effort. Some of that activity will be productive and 
appropriate, particularly where it focuses on the government's 
own use of AI, but the executive order overreaches in at least 
two ways. First, the President lacks the authority to impose 
the executive order's Section 4.2's obligations on private 
companies. The executive order claims authority under the 
Defense Production Act, which is a Korean War-era law intended 
to reduce one very specific type of national security risk--
threats to ``the ability of the domestic industrial base to 
supply materials and services that are needed for national 
defense and disaster recovery.''
    But the DPA does not authorize Section 4.2 for three 
reasons. First, there is no threat to the ability of the 
domestic industrial base to supply AI capabilities. The U.S. 
leads the world in supplying AI capabilities. Indeed, the White 
House, if anything, seems concerned with an oversupply of AI 
capabilities. As the EO itself notes, AI capabilities are 
advancing at rapid speed. Second, even if there were such a 
threat, Section 4.2 will not increase production of AI 
capability. Section 4.2 surveils an entire industry segment for 
various potential risks unrelated to production. The only 
production Section 4.2 will promote will be the production of 
highly sensitive commercial and cybersecurity information from 
companies to the government. Third, and most fundamentally, the 
DPA simply cannot shortcut the constitutionally established 
method of democratic lawmaking in the U.S. As we have heard, 
Congress is actively considering 28 AI-related bills. The DPA 
does not empower the President to skip ahead of Congress on 
this.
    The EO overreaches in a second way. The executive order's 
definition of ``artificial intelligence'' is so broad that it 
covers common everyday software, from social media content 
moderation algorithms, to insurance models, to common consumer 
and business financial tools. This broad definition means that 
many of the regulatory actions spurred by the executive order 
could apply not just to AI companies, but to any software 
developer in industries, such as transportation, education, 
healthcare, or energy. Even were it desirable to revise the 
U.S.'s highly successful approach to software regulation, doing 
so through a Presidential executive order is inappropriate. 
Such a change deserves to be considered, refined, and decided 
by Congress.
    In conclusion, the executive order could have focused on 
establishing a positive vision for a future of AI while 
protecting civil rights from government misuse of these 
technologies. Instead, it usurps Congress, abusing the DPA to 
impose new regulations, and spurring regulatory action that 
will affect the entire software industry. This overreach calls 
for continued congressional oversight, democratic 
accountability, and potentially legislative or judicial course 
correction. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. I now recognize Dr. Lee for her 5-
minute opening statement.

                   STATEMENT OF DR. NICOL TURNER LEE

                 SENIOR FELLOW, GOVERNANCE STUDIES, AND

               DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

                         BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

    Dr. Turner Lee. Thank you, Chairwoman Mace, Ranking Member 
Connolly, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, for 
the invitation to testify on President's Biden's executive 
order on safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of 
AI. I am Dr. Nicol Turner Lee, Senior Fellow at the Brookings 
Institution, which has a 100 year history of evidence-based, 
nonpartisan research, and I thank you, Chairwoman, for the 
mention.
    With that being said in my brief remarks, I just want to 
remind people that getting to the EO has been a long, 
deliberate, participatory process, and it has been one in which 
we have had several government actions proceeding and 
surrounding it, such as the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights 
released in October 2022, the National Institute of Standards 
and Technologies AI Risk Management Framework released in 2023, 
the securing of voluntary commitments by some of the top 
companies in July 2023, and the OMB guidance released shortly 
after October in November 2023. These actions reflect a whole-
of-governance governance approach, and they are really 
important for us to achieve national guidance as AI becomes 
both an asset and concern for our national security interests.
    I want to also share that Congress must act quickly on many 
of these proposals in our decision to maintain our status as 
leaders in the global economy. Rather than say that this is 
overreach, I consider these efforts to be preparation toward a 
more responsible, inclusive AI ecosystem. This first formidable 
action on AI under the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights 
shared a nonbinding roadmap for the responsible use of 
artificial intelligence. We then proceeded to have NIST, who 
gave us the risk management framework as a multi-tool for 
organizations to design and manage trustworthy and responsible 
technologies that are meant to be voluntary, rights preserving, 
nonspecific, use case agnostic. NIST is also going to release a 
playbook that will be a companion to this, and we recently 
launched the AI Safety Institute Consortium to bring 
stakeholders together to jointly develop and diffuse best 
practices, standards, and other things.
    A few months later, as it was mentioned, the White House 
secured voluntary commitments from some of the leading U.S.-
based AI companies that want to equally ensure safety, 
security, trust with advanced systems. They are willing to not 
only look at their own business models, but to find ways to 
engage in public reporting of their system capabilities, 
limitations, and guidelines for use. The most notable 
advancement, so far, is the Robust Watermarking Solution that 
these companies are working on together to ensure that we can 
authenticate AI-generated content.
    While the executive order may appear to be a variety of 
issues packaged into one, it is intentionally designed to be 
such. We have put in the work to make sure we have gotten to 
this point, and the EO will not only pursue the eight 
benchmarks that are outlined in its mandate, it also, on a 
cumulative level, has pursued us to look at best practice for 
AI use in criminal justice, education, healthcare, and other 
thoughtful processes that develop an astute and ready 
workforce. The actions to engage the Federal Government is 
probably the most ambitious, yet necessary, action to confirm 
our resilience among foreign actors and others who want to 
leverage malicious attacks.
    In my written statement, I opine more on the January 24 
progress report issued by the White House, which suggests that 
we actually are meeting many of those benchmarks, even in light 
of some of the concerns of my colleagues. Going forward, if the 
U.S. wants to be a leader in innovation, we must be responsibly 
prepared to manage those risks. AI can be developed with 
positive intentions, such as saving the climate, and 
simultaneously lean into negative uses, such as a large-scale 
generation and dissemination of misinformation and deepfakes, 
activities that are quickly appending important democratic 
institutions, like voting and elections infrastructure. 
Moreover, the advanced capabilities of frontier models, like 
generative AI, will only deepen these effects, particularly if 
our government does not act quickly to get ahead of this 
technology. Again, instead of seeing this as overreach, this is 
a whole-of-government approach that is thoughtful, 
participatory, coordinated, and have been percolating for a 
matter of years.
    More importantly, if Congress does not act, states will, 
China will, and other nations who are not only leading us in 
comprehensive legislation, but will soon be the standards that 
are going to develop the AI ecosystem. That is why we have 
urgent assignment to move and legislate on what is actually in 
the EO. More so, instead of having a patchwork of state laws 
and local provisions, it is important that Congress be 
concerned about these interests of AI simply on the national 
security interests, simply on the public consumer protection 
concerns, and more so because we want to be the leaders in this 
technology.
    I urge Congress to consider that we already have many 
proposals that have some bipartisan support, like the National 
AI Commission Act, the Protect Elections from Deceptive AI Act, 
and let us move so that we do not have to continue this 
conversation again.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you so much. I will now recognize myself 
for 5 minutes.
    Generally, my questions will be for the entire panel. I am 
a big fan of ``yes'' or ``no,'' so if you want to elaborate, I 
would just ask that you make it quick because I would like to 
hear from a lot of voices here this morning. The executive 
order is actually one of the longest EOs ever written at over 
100 pages, and it absolutely will encumber tech in a lot of 
ways, as we heard from our witnesses this morning.
    My first question is, the Commerce Department could not 
protect Secretary Raimondo's own email account from being 
hacked last year, yet this EO requires firms to share with the 
Agency on a daily basis the crown jewel secrets of the most 
powerful AI systems on earth. First question: can we trust 
Commerce to ensure this highly sensitive data does not fall 
into the hands of China or another foreign adversary? Yes or 
no.
    Mr. Thierer. No.
    Ms. Huddleston. I think we have seen that there is a need 
for a greater discussion of improving cybersecurity, both in 
the government and beyond.
    Mr. Chilson. No, and we should not have to.
    Dr. Turner Lee. Yes.
    Ms. Mace. OK. Thank you. According to the executive order, 
the over 100-page executive order, irresponsible use of AI 
could exacerbate ``social harms,'' including, 
``disinformation.'' Should we trust the government to be the 
ultimate arbiter of what is disinformation and what may cause 
social harm in AI systems? Mr. Thierer?
    Mr. Thierer. No.
    Ms. Huddleston. No, and we should be concerned about the 
First Amendment approach of doing such.
    Mr. Chilson. Absolutely not.
    Dr. Turner Lee. I will say yes, and government, with our 
civil society, industry partners, alongside of us.
    Ms. Mace. Should AI model developers have to give the 
government all their test results and test data, even those 
concerning politics or religion? Mr. Thierer?
    Mr. Thierer. No.
    Ms. Huddleston. I think it is a highly concerning proposal 
with significant consequences for innovation.
    Mr. Chilson. No.
    Dr. Turner Lee. You know what I am going to say.
    Ms. Mace. You are going to say yes.
    [Laughter.]
    Dr. Turner Lee. Especially in high----
    Ms. Mace. You are going to be the one dissenter this 
morning.
    Dr. Turner Lee. Yes, especially in high stakes.
    Ms. Mace. What are some of the, just very quickly, the 
risks if companies are giving their test data over to the 
government? Mr. Thierer?
    Mr. Thierer. There are security risks, of course. There are 
also concerns about how there might be speech meddling of 
various types, the sort of jawboning that could be associated 
with that sort of heavy-handed approach.
    Ms. Mace. What would the government do with such 
information potentially?
    Mr. Thierer. Well, it depends. We know in the past, there 
has been efforts by government authorities to utilize such 
information to try to curb certain types of behaviors or to try 
to intimidate certain people to do things against their will 
and without due process.
    Ms. Mace. Ms. Huddleston?
    Ms. Huddleston. Similarly, I think there are concerns about 
how this could have an impact on speech as well as innovation 
more generally, with the idea that innovators would have to 
seek permission from the government before engaging in their 
innovation, rather than having it play out in the marketplace 
of ideas.
    Mr. Chilson. I think one of the other big effects other 
than the government misuse would be the chilling effects it 
would have on people using tools like this to say things that 
they think the government might not want them to say.
    Dr. Turner Lee. And I would just suggest that I think we 
are conflating surveillance technology and how we actually look 
at government on the surveillance side versus what the EO is 
actually dictating, which is accountability, and the AI 
training data, and the test beds as we look at high-stakes 
applications. So, I would like us just to clarify that.
    Ms. Mace. OK. And then, well, my last point is, you know, I 
think we can all learn something, probably from recent history, 
the FBI's interpretation of the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian 
disinformation, and we had a number of over 20 former intel 
officers and folks that wrote a letter saying it was Russian 
disinformation. Come to find out, it was not. I think that is a 
concern that a lot of folks have on what the government will do 
with data, what the government will do with information, what 
the government will do with testing information, algorithms, 
code and programming product, et cetera.
    The EO requires companies even considering developing dual 
use foundation AI models to report to the government on an 
ongoing basis again about their most sensitive business 
secrets. Could the justification for using the DPA here be used 
in the future to demand highly sensitive plans and data from 
firms in any emerging technology field? Mr. Thierer?
    Mr. Thierer. Yes, it could, and we should avoid it for that 
reason.
    Ms. Mace. Ms. Huddelston?
    Ms. Huddleston. Yes, and it is concerning with the power 
that would give to the administrative state over technology, 
more generally.
    Mr. Chilson. The EO offers no limiting principle on the use 
of the DPA, and so I think we could expect that people will 
continue to walk down this road.
    Dr. Turner Lee. And I would just suggest that the 
invocation of the DPA is coming in absence of congressional 
action. If Congress were to provide some parameters on how we 
exercise some of the, you know, principles that are embedded in 
the EO, as well as things like congressional activities that we 
want to actually foster, I do not think we would have that 
problem. Congress just needs to act and legislate.
    Ms. Mace. All right. Thank you. I want to thank our 
participants on the panel today. We appreciate your time, your 
insight and expertise, and I will now yield 5 minutes to my 
esteemed colleague from Virginia.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you. Mr. Chilson, I am a little 
puzzled. You spent a lot of time criticizing the EO because it 
was too long, and I guess sitting up here looking at a very 
complex subject that has never been addressed before, and that 
many other people sat where you are sitting, Republican 
witnesses, chosen witnesses, all praise the EO as, yes, it 
gives us a framework we can work with, and they were not 
worried too much about overreach, you know. They felt it gave 
us a platform we can build on as we learn more, as we 
experience more. Why are you so bothered by the fact of its 
length?
    Mr. Chilson. So, I cannot speak for what other people might 
think about the EO. I can only speak for my experience in 
Federal Government and watching the regulatory process. What 
concerns me about the length of the EO is its unprecedented 
nature because it looks like legislation. If you slap the bill 
number on top of it----
    Mr. Connolly. OK. Can I interrupt you because I get that 
point, too, and I made a note of that. You went on to say it 
actually usurps the role of Congress. You said that. Well, you 
know, we do have a government with three branches, and we are a 
co-equal branch of government. So is the executive. And when 
one of those branches fails to act, that creates a vacuum that 
almost demands the others act, depending on the urgency of the 
situation. Now, it is nice to say, and I am a big champion of 
legislative prerogatives, and I believe Article I is Article I 
for a reason, and Article II is Article II for a reason, namely 
we are supposed to be the predominant arbiter of government. 
That was certainly what was in Madison's mind, but that is a 
different conversation.
    So, in the first session of the 117th Congress, we signed 
into law about a hundred bills, very far reaching in some 
cases, very visionary. In this Congress, 31, and half of them 
are post office namings. This is not a serious Congress. You 
mentioned, I think, 28 bills addressing AI. Not one has become 
law, and given our pace, it is unlikely any of them will become 
law in this Congress. We are not doing anything, and when that 
happens, it seems to me the President has an obligation to 
address an urgent and imminent subject like AI. And so, even 
though I share your passion about the prerogatives and 
responsibilities of the legislative branch, in this particular 
case, I have to defend the executive branch. They have not 
usurped Congress. They have actually done what Congress ought 
to do but is not going to do because we are not doing our jobs 
up here. In fact, we are not only not doing our jobs, we are 
actually regressing.
    So, in the appropriations bill, Nancy and I and others are 
going to vote on this week, apparently, they have zeroed out a 
congressionally created fund--by the way, I worked with Will 
Hurd on this, a Republican--the technology management fund, 
because apparently we do not need any more investment in 
technology. You know, we do not need more cyber capability. We 
do not need more AI training. We do not need any of that stuff. 
We do not need to protect data bases that you are worried about 
being compromised. And so, we are going to zero out the 
technology management fund created by Congress. So, we are 
going backward, we are not going forwards, and I just 
respectfully disagree with you. I do not think the executive 
order, I do not care how long it is myself, and I do not think 
that is a particularly viable critique. And with respect to 
usurping Congress, I do not think so.
    Now, the third critique I think you had in your testimony 
was overreach and echoed by your two colleagues on the other 
side of the panel. I want to give Dr. Turner Lee an opportunity 
to address that one. So, is it overreach? I mean, should we be 
worried that they have gone too far, and they are intruding in 
our lives, and they are going to compromise the ability of AI 
and all of its promise?
    Dr. Turner Lee. I would disagree with it being overreach. 
When I started in this space back in the early 2000's--I have 
been in technology since then when we were looking at regular 
data bases and stuff--we did not have any framework for 
predictive decisionmaking, and we had many conversations on 
algorithmic bias. We were seeing that people were having equal 
opportunities foreclosed simply because an algorithm made a 
decision. That was the very first basic step at looking at 
algorithmic discrimination and stuff like that. Now we have 
advanced capabilities through frontier models that are actually 
extracting data-text, voice, images--in ways that actually are 
so opaque and less transparent that we need more guidance. The 
technology continues to outpace policy in that matter. With 
that being the case, to your point, I think we have had many 
congressional bills that have come to the Floor, but they have 
been too late, so we have had to relitigate and remitigate what 
those bills are. In addition to that, we have been slow to the 
pace when it comes to data privacy protections, reevaluating 
our civil rights framework, things like that. I, in no way, 
think this is overreach.
    As a scholar at Brookings who is interested in trying to 
figure out proactive, evidence-based strategies to move 
forward, this is actually preparation. Without such 
preparation, as I said in my testimony orally as well as 
written, other countries are going to define the landscape for 
AI regulation, and we will be subjected to their rules, not 
just on the behavioral aspects, but also on those sides of the 
technical cadence.
    Mr. Connolly. Thank you. Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. I will now recognize Mr. Timmons for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Timmons. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess, first, I just 
want to respond to my colleague's, across the aisle, indictment 
of this Congress. Us not doing anything this Congress is a 
response to my colleagues across the aisle spending about $7 
trillion last Congress, and it has really caused my 
constituents a lot of problems. Inflation is through the roof. 
The cost of energy, groceries, interest rates are up. It is 
really costing Americans a lot. And so, we are struggling with 
our $34 trillion in debt. We are struggling with the fact that 
every hundred days we add a trillion dollars to our national 
debt, and really, our fiscal situation is out of control. So, 
we are very concerned about that, and we are going to try to 
find a path forward that is sustainable for the American 
people, that will give our kids and grandkids the American 
Dream for generations to come, but I am very fearful that that 
is not going to work out. So, we are going to focus on that.
    That said, we do need to address AI, and just because 
Congress is unable to address AI as quickly as we should does 
not give the President the right to legislate for us. It is 
just a really bad idea. You know, this has been tried again and 
again. I guess first, Mr. Chilson, who wrote this? I mean, this 
is very technical. It is very long as we keep saying, and, I 
mean, who wrote this?
    Mr. Chilson. I mean, it went through a White House process. 
I do not know many details about that process. It looks like a 
bunch of people wrote it.
    Mr. Timmons. It is extremely technical, right? I mean, it 
is extremely technical, so, I mean, people that have expertise 
that probably have an interest in a regulatory structure being 
placed on this. I mean, do you have any idea what groups were 
involved? Is there any transparency to that?
    Mr. Chilson. I do not. I think that is a good question for 
Congress to ask and an oversight committee to ask, and I do not 
have good information on that. I know there were a lot of 
participants. There were probably a lot of people who are 
asking for different things to be included in this, and that 
is, in part, why it ended up so long.
    Mr. Timmons. So, all the reporting requirements, does that 
not chill innovation? I mean, there are a lot of proprietary 
approaches to this. Is it going to chill innovation?
    Mr. Chilson. I think it could chill innovation in a couple 
of different ways. One, companies, when they are thinking about 
what sensitive data that they are going to have to report to 
the government, they are going to have to make a tradeoff. 
Like, are we going to grow big enough to meet the caps that put 
us over this reporting threshold, or are we going to stay under 
that and limit ourselves artificially in order to not have to 
comply with these specific rules? And I think that would be to 
the detriment of U.S. leadership in AI.
    Mr. Timmons. A lot of these companies are global. I mean, 
could they not just move their development overseas outside the 
jurisdiction of the U.S., or does the Defense Production Act 
somehow extend beyond our borders?
    Mr. Chilson. They absolutely could move overseas, and I 
know that there are jurisdictions that are actively recruiting 
AI startups and AI companies to move to their jurisdictions, 
promising them less constraining regulatory environments.
    Mr. Timmons. Dr. Lee, you used the term ``nonbinding.'' You 
were not referencing this executive order, were you?
    Dr. Turner Lee. In terms of the nonbinding reference, we 
know that much of the content that was in the AI Bill of Rights 
was nonbinding. It was more voluntary. And up until the 
executive order, as you all are aware, we really do not have 
any binding requirements unless the DPA is used for the test 
bed.
    Mr. Timmons. But----
    Dr. Turner Lee. It only applies to certain aspects of the 
EO, as we know.
    Mr. Timmons. OK. So, my understanding is that there are 
criminal penalties for not abiding by the DPA, and this is 
using those authorities, so would it not be a criminal offense 
that would result in jail and a fine should a company not 
comply? And I guess another question is, who would that even 
apply to? Would that be, like, the CEO? Would it be the board 
members of the company? How does that work?
    Dr. Turner Lee. So, I am with you. There actually has to be 
more clarification on how that enforcement strategy looks like, 
but remember, the regime of the DPA applies to only specific 
aspects of the EO itself. And to your question, if I may, 
respectfully, who wrote this was the American people, right? It 
was accumulation of all these activities leading up to the 
actual EO itself. So, I wanted to clarify because I kind of 
have some insight into some of the stakeholders that 
participated.
    Mr. Timmons. I mean, I think some of the technical 
expertise of this--look, I got a master's degree in 
cybersecurity, and I understand this as well as anybody.
    Dr. Turner Lee. Yes.
    Mr. Timmons. And I am reading some of this, and, you know, 
it requires a quantity of computing power greater than 10 to 
the 26 integer. I do not think the American people have any 
idea what that means, so with all due respect, the American 
people did not write this. Mr. Thierer, do you have any 
understanding of how this would be enforced in regard to 
noncompliance? I mean, would the CEO or would board members go 
to jail? Like, how would that work?
    Mr. Thierer. I think that is a great question. Recall that 
in the letter that the 20 AGs sent, they actually referred to 
this ``opaque and undemocratic process'' by forcing AI 
developers to submit information, but it was unclear to the AGs 
themselves, and they asked the Department of Commerce, like, 
what is going on here? So, we do not have answers to your 
questions, Congressman.
    Mr. Timmons. So basically, we took a problem and made it 
worse. It seems that way.
    Mr. Thierer. I think so.
    Mr. Timmons. But again, Congress does need to act, to be 
fair, so maybe we should get our act together and address this 
in a way that can facilitate innovation and keep the United 
States on the forefront of being the best economy in the world. 
Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. I will now turn it over for 5 minutes 
to Ms. Pressley.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to our 
witnesses for being here today. As a Member of the Financial 
Services Committee's bipartisan Working Group on Artificial 
Intelligence, I have no doubt that while AI presents 
opportunities for progress, it also poses significant risks, 
from undermining our privacy, to inciting political violence, 
to spreading disinformation. Congress has been slow to act, 
forcing the Biden-Harris Administration to take executive 
action to enforce standards and guardrails. The AI EO does just 
that, and to suggest that the White House is overstepping, 
especially when just last week, this Subcommittee heard 
devastating testimony on AI's infringement on the privacy and 
civil rights of women and girls. So that overreach 
characterization is absurd, in my opinion.
    Dr. Turner Lee, in what ways can AI pose disproportionate 
threats to people from marginalized backgrounds?
    Dr. Turner Lee. That is an area that I spend a lot of time 
with, and I think the effects on marginalized populations are a 
couple of things. One, the lack of transparency of AI systems, 
and particularly how they factor into predictive decisionmaking 
or eligibility concerns, can foreclose on equal opportunities. 
People do not know what those factors are that are going into 
credit decisions, housing decisions, criminal justice 
decisions, and the like. I would also say that people of color 
are disproportionately impacted by deepfakes and 
misinformation. The lack of transparency, actually, which is an 
issue. Deepfakes affect anybody in any state and any party when 
you actually look at it, but the lack of transparency 
particularly affects communities of color who have less agency. 
And then finally, I would just say criminal justice. I just 
spent a year and a half with the National Academies on facial 
recognition use in law enforcement, and in that application of 
AI, we also see a lot of vulnerabilities as well.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you. Yes, AI algorithms trained on 
skewed, inaccurate, or unrepresentative data magnify human 
biases, lead to discriminatory outcomes. The previous 
Administration, for example, has an abysmal record of using 
technology to incarcerate and to persecute communities of 
color. The Trump Administration used AI to identify legal 
protesters during the George Floyd protest, to employ racist 
algorithms with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to profile 
Muslims entering the country, and haphazardly arrest Chinese 
Americans during its China initiative. Meanwhile, President 
Biden's executive order takes unprecedented action to allow 
innovation while protecting people's privacy and civil rights. 
Dr. Turner Lee, are the steps outlined in the Biden-Harris 
Administration's EO sufficient to address biases in AI that can 
lead to discriminatory outcomes?
    Dr. Turner Lee. I wholeheartedly agree. I applaud this 
Administration for including words like ``equity'' and 
``parity'' as part of the EO in very outright ways so that we 
address this issue front hand. I also think, to your point and 
to the earlier conversation from my colleagues around the 
government use of AI, it is very clear in the EO this 
distinction between government surveillance that is used for 
malicious intent by government, versus resiliency, which is the 
Federal agencies just having clearer pathways on their use of 
AI generally, whether it is in benefits decisions, criminal 
justice decisions and actions, and so forth.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you. And, Dr. Turner Lee, what elements 
of the EO can Congress strengthen to ensure that advances in AI 
technology are not used to further involve people with the 
criminal legal system?
    Dr. Turner Lee. I think that Congress can take some steps, 
and there has been some bipartisan support around the use of 
facial recognition technology and how we actually not 
necessarily ban it, but we have some guardrails that make sense 
for various communities. I think Congress can also act on data 
privacy legislation. That legislation will allow some sense of 
guidance on what data can be collected, and in the area of 
biometric collection that can also safeguard communities of 
color. I think conversations on election and AI infrastructure 
and architecture should be of concern, and it has been on a 
bipartisan level. I think all of us are concerned about the 
integrity of our elections based on artificial intelligence and 
generative AI. So, I think there is a host of them. I am happy 
to share more of those with you, Congresswoman, going forward.
    Ms. Pressley. Thank you, and, you know, certainly we have a 
responsibility to be innovative in our efforts in order to 
build reliable protections for everyone, especially those who 
have historically been left behind or targeted. So, I invite 
all my colleagues to link arms and minds, if you will, in 
carrying out that work. Whether it is the use of facial 
recognition technology to criminalize people of color, deep 
fake pornography to degrade women, or biased algorithms to keep 
vulnerable community members from accessing critical resources, 
existing equity concerns are at risk of being worsened for 
people in my district, the Massachusetts 7th, and across our 
country. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Ms. Mace. Thank you. I will now recognize Mr. Burchett for 
5 minutes. I am looking forward to your questions on AI, sir.
    Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Chairlady. Mr. Thierer and Mr. 
Chilson, what is the historical background of the Defense 
Production Act?
    Mr. Thierer. Well, it was put in place, sir, to make sure 
that America had the proper productive capacity of the 
environment.
    Mr. Burchett. I realize that, but, I mean, I want to know 
the background. What caused it to be in place?
    Mr. Thierer. A concern about the lack of a productive 
capacity in certain sectors that the Federal Government felt 
were necessary to achieve various national security purposes. 
This was, of course, in the 1950s, a different time.
    Mr. Burchett. Right. That is what I was getting at, the 
Korean War.
    Mr. Thierer. Yes, a long time ago.
    Mr. Burchett. Yes, sir. And the primary purpose of the 
Defense Production Act is to allow the President to direct the 
production of materials and goods. Is that correct?
    Mr. Thierer. Yes, that is correct. Yes, that is correct.
    Mr. Burchett. OK. What materials or goods does Executive 
Order 14110 direct companies to produce?
    Mr. Chilson. Documents containing highly sensitive 
commercial and cybersecurity information.
    Mr. Burchett. OK. And what national security concerns exist 
regarding AI that justifies using the Defense Production Act?
    Mr. Chilson. Well, I think there are national security 
concerns around AI. We have heard a lot of talk about, you 
know, the rivalry with China and the importance of staying 
ahead, so there are concerns there. But as for ones that 
directly address the kinds of threats to interrupted production 
that the Defense Production Act is looking for, again, as Adam 
said, it turned the DPA on its head, which the DPA is to allow 
the government to spur production. And the executive order uses 
the DPA in order to discourage production on some levels, in 
part by imposing additional regulatory burdens on people who 
are producing at the highest level.
    Mr. Burchett. Has the Defense Production Act been used to 
extract information from companies rather than to encourage 
production? Either one of you all.
    Mr. Thierer. Not that I am aware of.
    Mr. Chilson. I have heard that there has been already an 
immediate request based on this use of the Defense Production 
Act, but I think in the past, I am not aware of another one.
    Mr. Burchett. Do you think using the Defense Production Act 
to regulate artificial intelligence is a bit of an overreach, 
and would Congress be better suited to regulate artificial 
intelligence?
    Mr. Thierer. Yes, Congressman, I think that is right. The 
authority begins here to decide what the Defense Production Act 
should do, and I think now we are witnessing pretty excessive 
overreach of the statute.
    Mr. Burchett. Do you all think that this executive order 
could stifle artificial intelligence innovation?
    Mr. Chilson. I do, and I think the use of the DPA here 
undermines some of the other important goals that Congresswoman 
Pressley was pointing out about government uses and the risks 
of government use of AI.
    Mr. Burchett. Ma'am, you were shaking your head.
    Dr. Turner Lee. May I respond? Yes. I actually disagree 
with that. I think, and going to my colleague here, who I have 
known for many years, I think what the Congresswoman was 
talking about does not require the use of the DPA, in all 
honesty. It actually just requires transparency, disclosure, 
that kind of stuff. I think the DPA was actually exercised 
based on just giving some push to us to do something as a 
national economy so that we make sure we are not behind others, 
particularly China, when it comes to AI.
    Mr. Burchett. Ms. Huddleston, you have not responded. Would 
you like to?
    Ms. Huddleston. I would agree with Mr. Chilson that I do 
think there are significant concerns about how the executive 
order could stifle innovation at a time when AI is still just 
emerging and we are just starting to understand the potential 
beneficial applications of it, as well as the potential risk.
    Mr. Burchett. Do you all think that the executive order 
strengthens the U.S.'s ability to maintain its lead over China? 
Ma'am?
    Dr. Turner Lee. I do, and, again, responding to my 
colleagues, when we talk about stifling innovation and 
invention in this country when it comes to AI, I think we have 
two different conversations going on. One is a conversation 
around the efficiency and use of AI in areas like, you know, 
occupational careers, different sub-stacks, technological 
applications. The other was around the sociotechnical 
application. How does the public interest benefit from the use 
of AI?
    Mr. Burchett. Right.
    Dr. Turner Lee. And I would just urge us to sort of not 
conflate those two areas.
    Mr. Burchett. Well, how does it do that?
    Dr. Turner Lee. When we have an informed populace that 
understands that technology is embedded in basically everything 
that we are doing today, our informed populace can make 
decisions that actually benefit their quality of life. When 
they do not know that these technologies or AI-generated 
content is happening, we are actually stifling our ability to 
move this Nation into a space where, to your point, we can stay 
competitive with our rivals.
    Mr. Burchett. Yes, my biggest fear with this, again, is we 
do not understand it. Heck, I do not understand it, and 
Chairlady Mace probably understands it, and my colleague across 
the aisle probably understands it. But here again, we are going 
to start regulating something we do not understand because we 
are government and we are supposed to, and then, again, it is 
just like cryptocurrency and everything else, dadgummit. We 
will end up hurting it, you know, so that is my concern. 
Chairlady, I yield back none of my time. Matter of fact, that 
is a negative amount of time, so I do not know if that 
penalizes me on the next or not.
    Ms. Mace. You did good, Mr. Burchett. I will now yield to 
Mr. Burlison for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Burlison. Thank you. Dr. Lee, would you say that 
democracy is important in the United States?
    Dr. Turner Lee. Yes.
    Mr. Burlison. Would you say at times it is a threat?
    Dr. Turner Lee. Yes.
    Mr. Burlison. I would agree. Let me ask you this. Would you 
think that an authoritarian state that does not represent the 
elected people is a threat to democracy?
    Dr. Turner Lee. I am happy I do not live in an 
authoritarian state, in a democracy that we have here in the 
United States, so I cannot tell you from personal experience.
    Mr. Burlison. Well, so, I humbly disagree because 
unfortunately, what we are seeing here, in my opinion, is an 
authoritarian move. This new executive order is not being 
conducted by the legislative body, people that were elected to 
represent the people of the United States. It is being written 
by people who have never run for office, to my knowledge, 
probably never run for office, do not have to answer to any 
voters whatsoever. So, Mr., is it Thierer?
    Mr. Thierer. Yes.
    Mr. Burlison. OK. In an analysis of the executive order 
last year, you stated that, ``The unilateral and heavy-handed 
administrative meddling in AI markets could undermine America's 
global competitiveness and even the Nation's geopolitical 
security, if taken too far.'' Has this executive order gone too 
far?
    Mr. Thierer. It very well could. You know, Congressman, 
just this week, Saudi Arabia announced historic investment in 
its AI capacity, something like $40 billion. Last September, 
the Government of the UAE came out with an open-source AI model 
that is 2.5 times larger than America's largest open-source AI 
model. So, it is not just China we face off against, it is all 
sorts of countries. Russia just developed one of its biggest 
supercomputers. If this executive order shoots ourselves in the 
foot as a Nation and holds back our innovative capacity, that 
has massive ramifications for our competitiveness and our 
geopolitical security.
    Mr. Burlison. Yes. My other question has to do with the 
fact that the executive order establishes an HHS AI task force 
tasked with developing a strategic plan to regulate aspects of 
AI in the healthcare industry, including research and 
discovery, drug and device safety, healthcare delivery and 
financing, and public health. Could this lead to an onslaught 
of additional regulations?
    Mr. Thierer. Absolutely, and we were already seeing it. We 
should keep in mind our Federal Government is massive; 438 
Federal departments, 2.2 million civilian workers working at 
them. Every one of these agencies is interested in taking a 
look at AI. This executive order essentially gives them the 
green light to do so and says go for it without any express 
congressional intent.
    Mr. Burlison. As someone who worked in the healthcare IT 
industry for 20 years, I can tell you that this place does not 
aid, was not helpful in improving the lives of the American 
people when it passed, under the American Recovery and 
Reinvestment Act, the meaningful use criteria that every 
software electronic medical record system had to accommodate in 
order to continue to receive full reimbursement from Medicare. 
The outcome, my statement, the outcome is basically proven 
that, and that is that what that regulation did was shut down 
many electronic medical record companies across the United 
States, which forced doctors to consolidate, change their 
records, migrate them to a new platform, or to stand up a 
platform altogether. They were happy with a paper chart. Would 
you agree with me that that outcome, creating what is basically 
a duopoly in the healthcare IT space, is not good for doctors, 
not good for patients, not good for consumers?
    Mr. Thierer. Yes. Well, of course not, and, of course, this 
effort by the Administration is just going to add more 
compliance costs and regulations on top of it. I know you 
mentioned this at the last hearing on this, Congressman, that 
these sorts of burdens can compile and buildup on small 
innovators and force them to move or get out of the field.
    Mr. Burlison. Thank you. And, you know, at the end of the 
day, it was said that if we do not take action, the states will 
take action. Well, I seem to recall that the United States 
Constitution and this system of government did not create the 
states. In fact, it is the other way around. The states created 
the Federal Government. And in the Tenth Amendment, it 
specifically says, ``The powers not delegated to the United 
States by the Constitution nor prohibited to it to the states 
are reserved to the states, respectively, or to the people.'' 
So, my question to you, ``left to the states,'' wouldn't it be 
better to have a microcosm of experiments, especially in a 
field that we know so little about at this point in time?
    Mr. Thierer. It depends on the rules. There are a lot of 
proposals out there, a huge increase in the sort of compliance 
burden if we have too much of a patchwork. The leading law on 
AI hiring right now in the Nation is from New York City. Not 
New York State. New York City. You can imagine if every city 
has its own plan on AI, that could be a problem.
    Mr. Burlison. Thank you. My time has expired.
    Ms. Mace. All right. We are waiting on one more Member who 
is coming, so I am going to ask a few questions that I did not 
get to ask earlier, so I will now recognize myself for 5 
minutes.
    So, the executive order came out at the end of October, and 
it said that Commerce would have to implement and get moving 
after 90 days, which would have been the end of January. Does 
anyone on the panel know if Commerce is doing anything related 
to this executive order at this juncture today, middle to end 
of March, soon to be April? Does anybody know?
    Mr. Chilson. They certainly are doing a lot, actually.
    Ms. Mace. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Chilson. There are several rulemakings and other 
proceedings that are ongoing. NTIA, which is part of the 
Department of Commerce, has a rulemaking on open-source models, 
and so there is a lot of swirl at NTIA, and I think across 
Commerce, so yes.
    Dr. Turner Lee. And I would echo that, Chairwoman, that 
Commerce has actually started, like other Federal agencies, to 
go deeper into these issues. So, there are activities as well 
as comments that will come out shortly, I am sure, on that.
    Ms. Mace. Any movement on the DPA provisions of the EO?
    Mr. Chilson. I have only heard that there was a request to 
some companies in mid-December that they start filing 
information. The understanding of the DPA provisions as the 
executive order came out was that none of the current models 
met the threshold for reporting yet, and so that request that I 
have heard has gone out, it is not quite clear why that request 
had gone out, and so----
    Ms. Mace. Because they had not met the threshold.
    Mr. Chilson. There is language in the DPA provision----
    Ms. Mace. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Chilson [continuing]. That says if you are even 
thinking of getting over the threshold, you also have to 
report, and maybe that is----
    Ms. Mace. And how do they report? How are companies----
    Mr. Chilson. I do not know what the exact procedure is. The 
executive order does not lay that out in specific detail. I 
think it would be up to whatever the requests are that are 
coming in. In fact, the executive order does not give a ton of 
detail about what specific information. It gives general 
categories, but I am hearing that they are asking for quite a 
lot, including a lot of sensitive information.
    Ms. Mace. It gives them, basically, broad authority to do 
whatever. Mr. Chilson, it gives them broad authority, then 
because of that vagueness?
    Mr. Chilson. I think so.
    Ms. Mace. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Chilson. Broad authority to request the information 
that fits into those buckets that are in the executive order.
    Ms. Mace. Gotcha. I think Dr. Lee wanted to chime in.
    Dr. Turner Lee. And just respectfully, we are also finding, 
though, with the progress report as well as my own research, 
that various Federal agencies, including NTIA, are becoming 
more transparent with their processes. So, I assume that we are 
actually going to see much more openness around what is 
happening around the executive order as they have been charged 
to take on certain aspects of that, Chairwoman.
    Ms. Mace. OK. And then this is a question for the entire 
panel. How does this EO stifle innovation, limit potentially 
investments in AI in the United States?
    Mr. Thierer. Well, I will just go back to the AG letter 
that really nailed it because they asked the Department of 
Commerce to answer some questions like you have just asked, 
Congresswoman. And when they referred to that opaque and 
undemocratic process of forcing AI developers to submit 
information for review behind closed doors, they also then 
talked about the danger of a bureaucratic and nebulous 
supervisory process that will discourage development, further 
entrench large incumbents, and do little to protect citizens. 
They asked a whole series of questions like you are asking to 
the Administration. I have not seen any answers back.
    Ms. Mace. Ms. Huddleston, how will this stifle innovation, 
stifle investment, because I believe that it will, having these 
encumbrances and burdens.
    Ms. Huddleston. And even in the places where the EO is 
vague, it signals to innovators that the government is 
expecting them to take a seek permission first approach, 
particularly for large, significant models and as this 
technology evolves. It signals that the Administration is kind 
of presuming this technology is a risk until proven otherwise. 
We saw during the internet era how this more precautionary 
approach for a general-purpose technology played out in Europe, 
that it led to not seeing the kind of development of companies 
that we saw in the U.S. And while there are many other factors 
to that, such an approach that requires innovators to seek 
government permission rather than consumers and innovators to 
decide in the market how a technology can progress may stifle 
innovators from going into certain areas, or may give rise to 
investors' concerns about whether a technology will be allowed 
to fully develop, particularly for those dual-use technologies.
    Ms. Mace. Mr. Chilson?
    Mr. Chilson. So, in addition to the DPA chilling effects 
that will happen under the authorities there to some of the 
largest models, I really do think, and to the earlier 
Congressman's point, that the very vague definition of 
``artificial intelligence,'' which to my reading and I think 
some other experts' readings, could sweep in things like 
formulas in complicated spreadsheets. This is not ChatGPT-style 
AI. We are talking about software that people use every day and 
that industries use every day. The Federal Government has now 
been told, including HHS, hey, go make sure that all of these 
AI pieces of software are working well, that they are meeting 
the appropriate levels of quality. That has the potential to 
unleash a lot of regulation, not just on what we think of as 
AI, but software development generally, which would be really a 
sea change in how the U.S. approaches software development.
    Ms. Mace. I know Dr. Lee is going to disagree here. So why 
does it not, in your opinion, because to me it is so obvious. I 
am just curious on your perspective, why it would not stifle 
innovation or not stifle investment.
    Dr. Turner Lee. Well, as one who has been in the technology 
space for more than 30 years, I clearly know when we see these 
technology disruptors stifle innovation. I think in this case, 
what we are going to see is improved certainty and baselines 
for companies to better participate in the AI economy. Right 
now, it will provide some behavioral guidance as well as some 
product design guidance that I think will be helpful as we 
actually, again, leverage AI as a national security interest. 
The other thing I want to just continue to refresh and remind 
us, that this is just not about the DPA, right? It is about 
creating an AI workforce. It is about making sure that we have 
the right research. It is about ensuring that our Federal 
agencies are resilient, and it is about making sure consumers 
are protected at any time, at any point in which they are 
engaging these technologies. So, with that, I think the 
certainty will definitely not stifle innovation in many 
respects and will actually help us to innovate better.
    Ms. Mace. With regards to DPA, do we see this applied to 
any other technology? Is that a thing?
    Mr. Chilson. The DPA has been used to ensure the supply of 
materials that are needed for defense and for disaster recovery 
on a wide range of technologies. We have never seen it applied 
to AI, and we have never seen it applied not to ensure that 
there is sufficient production for defense, but more for a 
regulatory purpose, like it is being used here, to make sure it 
is safer or that it is more limited than it is. So, this is a 
very unprecedented use of the DPA.
    Ms. Mace. And then, you know, I sit on not just the 
Oversight Committee and Chair of the Cybersecurity Committee 
here on the Oversight Committee, but I sit on House Armed 
Services. I am privy to a lot of briefings, classified 
briefings, about what our adversaries are doing, what they are 
up to, technology wise, even AI. And, you know, one of my 
greatest concerns from a national security perspective is 
advances that some of our adversaries are. Like, you know, I 
feel China is right on our heels, and I do not want to, I 
guess, limit our ability to keep up with the technology.
    And, you know, I have met with a lot of different tech 
firms and seen a lot of the benefits of AI. One of them, for 
example, is a company that maps the world every single day with 
200-plus satellites in space. They can map every inch of the 
earth every single day. Now, a year ago, this company, they 
were doing great. If you need to find a little widget or target 
or something on the map on earth, it could take a couple of 
hours, maybe take a couple of days, but they would eventually 
find it. With the avenue of AI, they have condensed it down to 
minutes and hours. Within 6 months, they have condensed down 
the amount of time that it takes to be able to find some 
particular piece of equipment or object here on earth, so huge 
advances.
    I would never, ever, ever, ever want to see government 
regulation, government requirements stifle our ability for this 
American company to advance technology as fast as it has. It 
has been remarkable, and I meet with this company about every 6 
months, and the innovation that I see is tremendous. And there 
are a lot of applications with a lot of different agencies, and 
not just the public sector, not just DoD, but the private 
sector as well. And so, any thoughts on, with this kind of 
regulation happening, how we stay, at least not just one, two, 
but a couple steps ahead of our adversaries around the world. 
Mr. Thierer?
    Mr. Thierer. Yes, very briefly, Congresswoman, you are 
exactly right.
    Ms. Mace. You got some time.
    Mr. Thierer. But this is why I spoke in my testimony about 
the symbiotic relationship between a strong technology base and 
our national security interests because this is how we maintain 
a strong security for the United States. Second, we should 
point out that anything in this executive order that we are 
discussing does not apply in China, and it does not apply to 
these other nations I was just discussing----
    Ms. Mace. That is right.
    Mr. Thierer [continuing]. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, whatever 
else.
    Ms. Mace. They can do whatever they want.
    Mr. Thierer. Whatever they want, right?
    Ms. Mace. They do not have to follow U.S. law or 
regulation.
    Mr. Thierer. So, we cannot put our head into the sand and 
think that just because we are constraining our companies, they 
are constraining theirs.
    Ms. Mace. Ms. Huddleston.
    Ms. Huddleston. I just would like to add, I think the 
example you provided shows why it is so difficult to define AI, 
and why one of the concerns that I know Mr. Chilson expressed 
about the definitions in the executive order that could reach 
very far into everyday algorithms or everyday technologies that 
we are using can be concerning, is in the defense context, we 
often hear that mentioned as a high-risk scenario. But there 
are many technologies, things that may be doing auto captions 
for meetings or maybe helping to map certain areas that might 
be useful in the defense context but are being developed for 
these dual-use purposes. And we do not want to see a scenario 
where they cannot be used by, say, the Department of Defense as 
necessary, even though they are benign and beneficial 
technologies.
    Ms. Mace. Mr. Chilson?
    Mr. Chilson. Well, we do have a template for how the last 
disruptive technology, the last major disruptive sea change 
technology of the internet was treated by the U.S. Government. 
And there was a very specific choice, both in legislation and 
at the executive level, to let the market lead, to let 
innovators lead, to let them drive this technology forward 
because they can explore a lot of different approaches and uses 
in a way that we could never envision in the early 90s when 
some of these decisions were made. And so, I do think that that 
template, which requires action both by the White House, it can 
require action by the White House, and also it could be done by 
Congress as well, to take an open look at a structure that 
would allow for a lot of variation. Let us focus on some 
specific targeted harms but not tech specific. All the bad 
things that we have heard about AI, those things are bad 
whether or not they have been done with AI or with another 
tool. We should target those harms, we should treat those 
seriously, and we should deal with them, but there is no reason 
to target AI on these specifically.
    Ms. Mace. Dr. Lee?
    Dr. Turner Lee. Yes, and I will just say, just with my 
colleagues here, I think we can go back and look at the 5G 
revolution, right, as an example of where we sort of stood back 
on where we wanted to go as a Nation when it came to mobile 
wireless leadership, right? And we eventually had to catch up 
with China--I write a lot about that--and create our own 
regulatory guardrails ourselves to ensure that not only were we 
catching up with China, but we were also imparting in the 
United States a type of social capital and economic capital and 
innovation to actually expand those networks.
    The same thing should be said about how we look at the AI 
Act from the EU recently. I do not think anyone is really 
saying in the EO that we need to come up with this broad 
regulatory guidance that we all need to adhere to. I think what 
we are seeing in the EO is here are some areas that we need to 
take precaution with. Here are some areas where we need to 
advance leadership, whether it is in the workforce or whether 
it is in innovation, whether it is in the adjacent products and 
services that go with the supply chain.
    At the end of the day, we are the United States, right, and 
we are going to do things a little differently than everybody 
else, but without making this a Wild West when it comes to 
innovation and having some certainty that redeposits back into 
our American economy, you know, we are going to find ourselves 
in the same similar situations we have had with other 
technology disruptions.
    Ms. Mace. OK. Thank you all for your questions, and I will 
now yield to Mr. Lynch for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you 
for your relentless leadership on this issue. Much appreciated. 
I had a couple of hearings at the same time. That is how they 
do everything here. Everything happens at once, but I 
apologize. I was in a hearing down the corridor on Financial 
Services. I want to thank the witnesses. I have read your bios, 
and I appreciate the expertise and the intellect that you bring 
to this hearing. So, thank you very much for helping the 
Committee with its work. This is one of those areas that we are 
really grappling with. The velocity of change has been 
incredible, and I think we are racing to catch up.
    As reported by the United States intelligence community in 
its Worldwide Threat Assessment recently, Russia, China, North 
Korea, and other state actors are continuing to conduct malign 
influence operations aimed at disseminating disinformation and 
magnifying U.S. societal divisions and interfering with the 
upcoming U.S. elections. They are doing this in other countries 
as well, but we are principally concerned about this country 
and this election right now. So, as you might imagine, the 
introduction of generative AI sort of amplifies the 
possibilities of this exacerbated threat.
    I know that FBI Director Chris Wray recently testified to 
the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He said 
that, ``This election cycle, the U.S. will face more 
adversaries moving at a faster pace and enabled by new 
technology,'' speaking of AI. He also went on to say that 
advances in generative AI make it ``easier for both more and 
less sophisticated foreign adversaries to engage in malign 
influence.''
    And today, virtually, as you know, anyone can weaponize AI 
to create fake but convincing photos, videos, and audio clips 
with the purpose of election interference or manipulation. Just 
recently, 2 days before the New Hampshire Presidential 
primary--I am sure you heard of it--thousands of residents of 
New Hampshire received robocalls that used an AI voice cloning 
software to imitate President Biden. It was rather convincing 
as well. The robocall encouraged recipients not to vote in the 
primary election and ``save your vote for the November 
election,'' so you can easily see how, you know, this 
technology might be used for nefarious purposes.
    Dr. Turner Lee, what effect can we expect AI-generated 
deepfakes and misinformation to have on Americans' trust, their 
trust in the election process?
    Dr. Turner Lee. Thank you for that, and I am very happy 
that you brought this up as part of this conversation. As the 
Brennan Center has reported on a variety of their reports, we 
definitely need to address AI-generated content that is leading 
into misinformation and disinformation to ensure that we have 
an informed electorate and to also have electoral 
infrastructure in process that is not harmed by malicious 
actors or other malfeasances that are relying on synthetic 
media or artificially generated content that will dissuade 
voters. And that, I think, applies to everybody in this room, 
regardless of your party, your residents, et cetera. You know, 
we all need to make sure we are going to the polls with that 
kind of information.
    With that being said, it is really important for us to get 
a handle on this. I think one of the things that we did not do 
in this panel that we often do in others is we sort of talk 
about AI and generative AI as if they are the same thing. You 
know, generative AI has more advanced capabilities of 
extraction of voice, image, text in ways that we cannot often 
find out where it originated from. And so having, as we see in 
the executive order, these industries commit to helping us with 
a better digital watermarking system, being able to have 
conversations around copyright protections, really determining 
ways in which we engage the public in general education so that 
they are more informed about misinformation, I think are 
particularly important. And Congress has actually had some 
bipartisan action on this that I think we should take heed of 
if we are going to get these elections right now and into the 
future.
    I would just also suggest to you, Congressman, that states 
are also taking this very seriously. My colleagues at 
Brookings, we are looking at, you know, what states are doing, 
and I think there are some synergies between Federal action and 
concern and state action and concern. And so again, broadening 
the scope of making sure that this is a priority for Congress, 
I think, is key.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you. I just want to ask, are there 
countermeasures that are at hand to allow us to sort of push 
back on some of this and reveal its, you know, I guess, 
negative nature and its falsity?
    Mr. Thierer. Yes. I will just mention one----
    Mr. Lynch. Sure.
    Mr. Thierer [continuing]. And my colleagues will have more. 
Representative Rochester has a really good bill having to do 
with AI literacy and education, and trying to find ways to 
teach our electorate and our citizens that there are dangers 
out there, including misinformation in campaigns and elsewhere 
in the market. So, that is a good baby step to take to 
partially get at this problem, which is a serious one.
    Mr. Lynch. I was thinking more about technology that could 
vet, you know, to look at. I know it is incredibly difficult, 
and the technology is changing so quickly, but are there proven 
methods that might allow us to uncover quickly, you know, a 
message that is not from its proposed source?
    Ms. Huddleston. We have seen the industry start to evolve 
to respond to these concerns, and there will be different 
actions from different players, just as there are different 
natures of what exactly AI looks like. So, how a certain social 
media platform may respond to concerns about AI-generated 
images in an election context or in an election ad context may 
look different than how a search engine does or how another 
tool does when it is, for example, dealing with voice as 
opposed to video. We have seen that, oftentimes, allowing these 
different norms to play out will allow consumers to get 
appropriate amounts of information in that context because it 
will look different on each platform and each tool, as opposed 
to a government one-size-fits-all approach, where not only do 
you have concerns about the potential impact on speech, you 
also have concerns about, given the broad definition of AI, how 
much content could this apply to, and might it bring in things 
that are more common. So, for example, something that removes 
an object in the background using an AI editing tool but gets 
labeled as AI generated or AI manipulated because it used an AI 
tool rather than a human graphic designer or something.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you. Madam Chair, I appreciate the 
courtesy you have extended me, and I will yield back because I 
know I am way over time.
    Ms. Mace. No, you are good. Thank you, Mr. Lynch, and in 
closing, I want to thank our panelists for being with us today 
and providing their testimony and answering our questions. We 
want to make sure that the United States is the clear winner, 
the clear innovator in all technology, including AI. We do not 
want to stifle innovation. We do not want to stifle investment 
in AI or its innovation in any way, shape, or form. There is a 
lot at risk here, and we do not want our adversaries getting 
ahead of us or giving them the room or the rope to get ahead of 
us at all, so thank you again.
    And with that, and without objection, all Members will have 
5 legislative days within which to submit materials and to 
submit additional written questions for our witnesses, which 
will then be forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
    If there is no further business, without objection, the 
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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