A White House Power Grab on AI Would Be a Huge Mistake
David Sacks would have sweeping AI powers.
Photographer: Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
The Senate’s overwhelming rejection in July of a plan to ban states from passing regulations on artificial intelligence — the vote was 99-1 — is now set to be brazenly ignored. The White House is pushing for the measure to be revived and added to the National Defense Authorization Act. If that fails, and it’s a longshot, the president stands ready to sign an executive order essentially forcing it through anyway.
The measure would put the future of this critical technology — how it is developed and for whose benefit — in the hands of a few tech power players. Some of them posed together for a photo on Tuesday night while attending the dinner put on for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. David Sacks, the White House AI and crypto czar, was there, as was OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman; the now back-in-favor Elon Musk; and Nvidia Corp. founder Jensen Huang. Sacks captioned the picture “AI Diplomacy.”