The Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence expressed concerns today that the United States is not prepared to fight foreign interference in the 2024 presidential election cycle, particularly when it comes to AI misuse.
“We have an obligation on the Intel Committee of looking at oversight on safety of our elections, and I’m gravely concerned that we’re not as prepared for foreign interference in our elections in 2024 than we were in 2020,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said during Federal News Network’s inaugural AI & Data Exchange 2024 on Feb. 27.
The senator said his key legislative focus right now is filling in some of the gaps in President Biden’s recent AI executive order (EO) “to make it have a little more juice,” including passing legislation on elections, public markets, and national security.
“Filling in the gaps on the EO, taking areas like elections and/or public markets, and then questions around national security are all areas where I think we might see some action,” he said.
Sen. Warner said that as half the world gears up to enter an election cycle in 2024, he is focused on the voluntary set of guidelines for AI misuse in elections around the globe. On Feb. 16, a group of 20 leading technology companies signed a pact to help combat the use of harmful AI-generated content, such as deepfakes, meant to deceive voters in the 2024 elections.
“There’s going to be a group that I’ve been working with … to say, ‘Can we at least get a set of voluntary guidelines for AI misuse in elections, not just in our nation, but in elections around the world,’” the senator said. “So, it will probably be a little bit about voluntary efforts, but hopefully then some guardrails that have some force of law.”
The lawmaker said he doesn’t feel that he’s “hit the sweet spot” with his legislation in these areas quite yet.
“I don’t want to sound jaded, but I have thought about the fact that as we think about the gaps on the EO, could you put in something that was simply a technical fix that maybe didn’t get a lot of attention … Probably won’t be able to do that,” he said.
He continued, adding, “I’m going to still work in these areas around markets, elections, around national security, around this notion of watermarking/and then protecting whatever kind of entity that identifies a product, a song, a face, a voice as AI manipulated to make sure that people that do that, those protections are not removed. I think there’s some bipartisan support there.”
Despite the broad bipartisan support for AI guardrails, Sen. Warner said he feels “fearful” because the number of senators who showed interest in Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s AI listening sessions dwindled to “three or four.”
“I have been fearful because while I’m hanging in on most of these sessions, the number of members who would come to an AI learning session nine months ago, I could get virtually everybody I invited, by the end … I think there were three or four of us that would be showing up,” he said.
