This one is a whopper. He let something slip out, and it was a bad idea. Of all the people to not pay attention to what he should be saying, he is one of the two “leaders” who should think. But Johnson doesn’t think. He nods and smiles and does what his orange master bids him to. And therein lies a problem. In today’s digital world, the word on something gets around a helluva lot faster than it used to.
Let’s just say people are very unhappy with him. What he said sounded like he didn’t want Congress to put in the effort to do something that critically needs to be done. It can’t be up to the companies that have this thing. It needs to be addressed, and guardrails very much need to be put and *kept* in place. It can’t be up to the individual companies. We need to have some basic requirements in place for anyone generating and using this.
My gratitude to Raw Story:
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) let slip a startling admission on Sunday during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” Tapper asked Johnson about Congress’ efforts to regulate artificial intelligence, which some experts have said is shaping up to be one of the most economically disruptive technologies in history. The question came a day after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for AI leaders to slow the rate of progress to allow safety measures to catch up. ” Different ideas about what the guardrails should be,” Johnson said. “There’s no consensus among them, and Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who are pushing this frontier.”
Excuse me? Congress generally creates the laws for the country. Congress should be setting up some specific requirements for AI. Everyone knows how much AI can go wrong, and we’ve lost people to suicide because of it. Remember Hegseth wanting AI with no controls? And Anthropic fighting with Hegseth because he wanted no guardrails and to use to create certain things for the military, like mass domestic surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons.
We *need* control over AI. Yes, the future is here, and we should worry. It may not be as bad as Skynet from the Terminator movies, but so many things could go horribly wrong. Congress needs to take action before all hail breaks loose. And don’t forget the mess data centers make to run this AI. The field is progressing so fast that Congress is already behind the times. Mikey is dodging the question and the responsibility. And we’re not the only ones who think so.
“This is literally an argument against representative government itself,” Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE) posted on X. “He’s arguing for an autocracy of elites rather than a republic where a legislative body will inevitably have a range of backgrounds and expertise as they craft overarching policy.” “Beyond that, it’s not like members of Congress are food inspectors, FDA scientists, or doing enforcement at the SEC. This is just the dumbest possible excuse to not do anything as a Congress,” McBride added. “Do your job as a legislator or get out.”
BOOM. That’s right! Do your job or hit the road. Johnson might not hold onto the Speakership after midterms. We need someone who will be active, not dodging his duties, not dodging what he’s there for. AI is already causing problems, and the longer it goes on and learns, the bigger the chances are of something going wrong. Johnson needs to get his head out of his arse and do his damn job. Anyone want to bet on whether he will or not?
Friends, I know everybody begs you for money. I promise you that, of all the outlets bugging you for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest-working. We’re a bunch of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. But the rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the ability to continue our quest to tell the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
From one of the blockquotes: “There’s no consensus among them, and Congress is obviously less qualified than the people who are pushing this frontier,” per Mike Johnson.
So, by that “logic,” Congress shouldn’t be dealing with things like “copyright law” (incidentally, a lot of REAL creators–musicians, painters, authors, film makers, actors–have seen their works being used, without proper credit OR payment, to help AI “learn” to “create” artistic works). I mean, just because the Constitution established Congress as the body to create copyright laws for the US doesn’t mean many (if any) of our elected officials really understand the principles and concept of copyright.
But, it’s also funny because Congress (both Houses, incidentally) enjoy holding these things called “hearings” on various subjects, mainly to better educate themselves on those issues. For AI, hearings would involve not only the people and companies behind the development of AI but also various artists (and there are some who have no problem with AI–though you can be damn sure any of them who create works using AI will certainly make sure those works get full copyright protection–but there are far more who strongly denounce the whole thing).
I’ll bet anything that, if someone decided to make an AI image of Drumpf in a situation that caused Drumpf to be embarrassed or humiliated, Mikey would be calling for hearings tout de suite.