Legislative Session
Very soon, Mr. President, AI will reshape life on Earth in very dramatic ways. It will transform how we fight disease, tackle hunger, manage our lives, enrich our minds, and ensure peace. But we cannot ignore AI's dangers: workforce…
Very soon, Mr. President, AI will reshape life on Earth in very dramatic ways. It will transform how we fight disease, tackle hunger, manage our lives, enrich our minds, and ensure peace. But we cannot ignore AI's dangers: workforce disruptions in a very serious way, misinformation and new weapons, threats against our elections, and there is the danger that we may prove incapable of managing this technology at all. Congress cannot behave like ostriches in the sand when it comes to AI.
Yesterday, I laid out my SAFE Innovation framework for AI. I call it that because innovation must be our North Star. AI could be our most spectacular innovation yet, could lead to generations of prosperity, so Congress must promote its growth here in the United States. But if people don't think innovation can be done safely, without danger, that will stifle AI's development and even prevent us from moving forward.
So my SAFE Innovation framework balances both prioritizing security, accountability, protecting our foundations, and explainability as safeguards, guardrails we need to make AI work safely for us.
Yesterday, I also announced that later this year, I will invite the top AI experts to come to Congress and convene a series of first-ever AI Insight Forums for a new and unique approach to developing AI legislation. These Insight Forums are the first of their kind. They have to be the first of their kind because AI moves so quickly, will change our world so decisively. It is so much deeper in its complexity than almost anything else we have dealt with and lacks the legislative history in
Congress that other issues like the military or education or healthcare have.
Our jobs as legislators will be to listen to the experts and learn as much as we can so we can translate these ideas into legislative action. We must work quickly but not precipitously, because this issue is so complex. We will have no artificial deadlines. We will come up with proposals in a matter not of days or weeks and not of years, but months.
These forums can't and won't replace the activity already happening in Congress on AI. Our committees must continue serving as the key drivers for legislation we produce in Congress, but the AI forums will give us lots more information and knowledge from which we can draw legislation.
I thank all Senators from both sides who are already working on this issue. We are keeping it bipartisan, as it must be.
We must exercise humility as we proceed. ``Humility'' is a key word here because this is so overwhelming. Success is not guaranteed. AI is unlike anything we have dealt with before, and it may be exceedingly difficult for legislation to tackle every single issue. But if we can find some solutions and create some consensus, we must press ahead. As Theodore Roosevelt said, ``We are in the arena.'' And there is no substitute for government being involved because without government, there will be no guardrails. Some companies may put them in, but they even won't put them in if other companies don't and gain an advantage. So government must be involved here. It is the only force powerful enough to impose guidelines on what could otherwise be an unfettered
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
Mr. President, America's tragic epidemic of gun violence has been made worse by easy access to pistol braces. But today, amazingly enough, with all of these mass shootings, Republicans want to loosen safety rules regarding these accessories and take us backward in the fight against gun violence. It is hard to believe that that is what is happening.
Pistol braces make it easier to conceal and transport weapons that function as highly dangerous short-barreled rifles and, in many instances, have been accessories of choice in recent mass shootings. Some of these mass shooters choose these braces to cause mayhem, and we are loosening the rules on them.
It is hard to believe our Republican friends are doing this. How on Earth can Republicans look at our Nation's gun violence and think the right answer is to make these accessories easier to own? How can Republicans look away from tragedies in Dayton, in Boulder, and in Nashville, and in so many other places where pistol braces were involved, and conclude that we should reverse commonsense gun safety rules?
When you use a pistol brace, if you are up to bad purpose, it makes it easier to conceal a weapon with AR-15-like power.
Today's Republican push to reverse safeguards against deadly pistol braces is an insult to families torn apart by these accessories. It is in my mind almost every day, when the shootings occurred in Tennessee and the shooter used a pistol brace, and three 9-year-olds were killed, as well as three teachers, and you saw the picture of the little girl crying on the bus leaving the school because she was so frightened. I think of that picture every day.
This proposal would mark a horrible--horrible--step backward in America's fight against gun violence. I urge my colleagues--I hope on both sides of the aisle--to vote no.
Vote on H.J. Res. 44
I ask for the yeas and nays.