Twitter CEO Elon Musk met with several U.S. lawmakers and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Washington, D.C., to discuss artificial intelligence (AI) and his electric vehicle company Tesla.
Musk met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Capitol Hill in a private meeting as Schumer reportedly works on legislation to regulate AI.
“We talked about the future,” Musk told reporters after exiting the one-hour meeting. “We talked about AI and the economy.”
Musk, who runs Tesla and SpaceX, has considered developing a new generative AI startup called X.AI Corp. to compete with Open AI and ChatGPT.
Met with @SenSchumer and many members of Congress about artificial intelligence regulation today.
That which affects safety of the public has, over time, become regulated to ensure that companies do not cut corners.
AI has great power to do good and evil. Better the former.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2023
Schumer said he had a “very good” meeting with Musk discussing AI and Tesla’s presence in Buffalo, New York. He told reporters he previously met Musk while visiting SpaceX.
According to Axios, Schumer is in the early works of creating AI legislation. He has developed a broad framework among policy experts addressing transparency and disclosure requirements for people making AI tools.
Schumer said he drafted and circulated a “framework that outlines a new regulatory regime that would prevent potentially catastrophic damage to our country while simultaneously making sure the US advances and leads in this transformative technology.”
In March 2023, Musk, with AI experts and industry executives, advocated for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful that Chat GPT, citing potential risks to society in an open letter.
“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” the letter by the Future of Life Institute read.
There is a growing push in Washington, D.C., to regulate AI. Senate Intelligence Committee chair Mark Warner (D-VA) sent prominent AI CEOs a letter asking them to take steps to address concerns over their technology.
Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told reporters that the Biden administration is working “as aggressively as possible to figure out our approach” toward AI.
“The challenge is you don’t want to stifle innovation in a brand new area with massive potential,” Raimondo said. “The risks related to misinformation and deep fakes etcetera are massive.”
In January 2023, Musk met with two prominent White House officials to discuss how Tesla and the Biden administration can work together in advancing electric vehicle production.
During his six-day state visit, Yoon met with Musk to call for investment in his country. He touted South Korea as a “perfect” country for Tesla to build a “gigafactory,” citing the country’s industrial robots and high-skilled workers. Musk told Yoon that South Korea remains one of the top candidates for Tesla’s “gigafactories” and that he would soon visit the Asia country.
