A divided Congress and competing legislative priorities will likely stall any compliance-related work on the use of AI in the workplace.
Rep. Ted Lieu said Tuesday that movement on sweeping legislation that would impact how the technology is deployed at work is unlikely.
“The notion that we’re going to pass some massive 5,000 page AI bill that also regulates 27,000 use cases of AI, including hiring, I’m not sure that’s gonna happen this year,” the Democrat told Axios during an AI at work event in Washington DC.
Lieu—the first member of Congress to write a bill with the help of generative AI—is co-chairing the bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence with Republican Rep. Jay Obernolte.
The California lawmaker said what’s at issue is not necessarily a matter of educating lawmakers about the technology—or its impacts and uses in the workplace and beyond—but a matter of competing priorities and what he described as “chaos” in the Republican-controlled chamber.
“I don’t think you have to know exactly how an AI algorithm works or be able to program code to vote on AI legislation,” he said. “I have no idea really how a Boeing 787 flies, but I voted on FAA reauthorization. Members of Congress vote a thousand times every two years in our military cycles and all sorts of issues.”
The task force is working on a report for fellow lawmakers identifying areas ripe for legislative fixes. It’s held hearings since it launched in March to figure out what needs the Congressional touch.
“I think it’s important that you understand the fundamentals of AI: what it can do, what it cannot do, some of the risks and benefits, and then, [you can] vote on it,” he said.
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More Congress can do. Lieu said that, despite no incoming sweeping laws on AI, it is possible for Congress to use the bully pulpit to pressure AI developers and companies using the tech to “do the right thing.”
“Congress can take actions that are not passing laws,” he said. “We could hold hearings if you don’t do the right thing. We can go to the press and embarrass companies that don’t do the right thing. We can write letters to AI developers that don’t do the right thing. So there [are] still things Congress can do, but the notion we would be able to pass all these laws on all these different AI use cases this year, I think is probably not going to happen.”
What’s that mean for HR? When it comes to governing how AI is used at work, Lieu said there are two approaches that lawmakers can explore.They can either apply existing legal frameworks to AI applications or identify new ones needed and legislate on those.
“We have a whole body of law built up over many, many years—for example, employment law—and what we can do is simply fit AI into that body of law, and then the courts and the various parties can use those laws and adjudicate different issues,” he said. “Another approach would be…if AI has bias and a whole bunch of folks are not hired [because of their] gender and other protected class, we can also have laws that say you cannot deploy this system if it doesn't meet certain checks or balances. Those are [the] different models. I think it remains to be seen how different states or federal government approaches them.”