Senator Mark Warner on AI's Risks: “I Want To Be More Optimistic, But I Am Terrified.”

Senator Mark Warner seemed worried. Sitting in his office in Washington D.C., the three-term legislator from Virginia leaned forward, looked into his computer, and told me he didn’t believe the government, or anybody for that matter, was prepared for what might happen if AI reaches its potential.

“I don’t think the government’s ready. I don’t think society’s ready,” Warner said. “Short term, next three to five years, the economic disruption is going to be — I just think we are not ready at all.”

Warner is widely regarded as one of the most read-in U.S. lawmakers on technology issues, and I reached out to him after having a few recent unsettling conversations with AI-insiders who seem certain we’re under-appreciating AI’s potential near term impact. If there’s even a small chance that AI takes over swaths of knowledge work in the coming years, and that leads to job loss, the government should be right now working on plans to mitigate the downsides. Warner’s assessment wasn’t exactly reassuring.

“We’re at about 9% recent college graduate unemployment. I think that number will actually go to 30%,” Warner said. “To say government’s not ready would be an understatement.”

Multiple firms have already told Warner they’re using the technology to reduce their employee numbers, he said. One law firm is no longer taking on first year associates (“Going to take a pause,” Warner said, “and see how this works out before they even hire.”) Another midsized firm has reduced its back office team from 23 people to three. More “big brand name firms,” Warner said, are cutting internships in half or doing away with them altogether.

To be sure, the near-term predictions of mass job loss after ChatGPT’s debut have yet to come to fruition. Three years later, the U.S. unemployment rate is a not-disastrous 4.4%. But ever more capable AI makes the potential issues impossible to ignore.

In Washington, where legislators can barely keep the country’s airports open, part of what’s working against AI literacy is the complexity of the issues. “I think most members — and this is a human reaction — if you don’t get it and it seems too complicated, you want to try to punt on that,” Warner said.

Still, there are a few ongoing efforts that Warner and his colleagues are involved in that are, at least, a start. Warner and Senator Josh Hawley, for instance, recently introduced a bill that requires corporations and the federal government to report AI-driven job loss to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And Warner and Senator Mike Rounds recently introduced the Economy of the Future Commission Act, which would generate policy suggestions to mitigate AI’s potential shock to the job market.

“They are, self-acknowledging here, small incremental steps when it very much could be the holy shit moment,” Warner said.

Asked if Congress is ready to meet the speed of AI’s progress with fast action of its own, Warner didn’t mince words. “I want to be more optimistic,” he said. “But I am terrified.”

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What Else I’m Reading, Etc.

Apple will open Siri up to AI assistants from rival companies [Bloomberg]

ChatGPT’s controversial ‘Adult Mode’ has been shelved indefinitely [Engadget]

OpenAI’s advertising pilot is already above $100 million in annualized revenue [CNBC]

Citi says despite the S&P being down 6% on the year, there’s room to drop much further [CNBC]

This Week On Big Technology Podcast: Senator Mark Warner: Nobody’s Ready for What AI Could Do To Us

Senator Warner joins Big Technology to discuss whether Washington is prepared for the economic and societal disruptions of rapidly advancing AI. Tune in to hear why Warner believes recent college graduate unemployment could surge from 9% to 30% and why he’s more frightened than reassured about Congress’s ability to respond at speed. We also cover the Anthropic-Pentagon relationship, AI romantic relationships, data center opposition polling, and the ongoing battle over congressional stock trading. Hit play for a rare conversation with one of the few senators who actually understands what’s at stake.

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My book Always Day One digs into the tech giants’ inner workings, focusing on automation and culture. I’d be thrilled if you’d give it a read. You can find it here.

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