Elon Musk talks AI, Tesla with Democratic leader Schumer

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla (NASDAQ:) and social media platform Twitter, discussed artificial intelligence issues and electric vehicles with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday.

“We talked about the future,” Musk told reporters after exiting the meeting that lasted about an hour. “We talked about AI and the economy.”

Schumer told reporters he had a very good meeting with Musk. “We talked about Buffalo (New York) – Tesla has a large plant in Buffalo. And we talked about AI,” according to CNN and Politico.

Earlier this month, Schumer, a Democrat, said he had launched an effort to establish rules on artificial intelligence to address national security and education concerns, as use of programs like ChatGPT becomes widespread.

Schumer said he had 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 U.S. advances and leads in this transformative technology.”

In March, Musk and a group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives called for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than OpenAI’s newly launched GPT-4, in an open letter citing potential risks to society.

“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” said the letter issued by the Future of Life Institute.

There is a growing push in Washington for AI regulations. Senate Intelligence Committee chair Mark Warner, a Democrat, sent major AI CEOs a letter Wednesday asking them to take steps to address concerns.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, told reporters Wednesday the Biden administration is working “as aggressively as possible to figure out our approach” to 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, Musk met two top White House officials in Washington to discuss how Tesla and the administration of President Joe Biden could work together to advance electric vehicle production. He also visited with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, in a meeting earlier this year.