Manchin Chairs Cybersecurity Subcommittee Hearing on Artificial Intelligence

Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Cybersecurity Subcommittee, led the second Cybersecurity Subcommittee hearing of the 118^th Congress. Senator Manchin questioned artificial intelligence experts Dr. Josh Lospinoso, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Shift5, Dr. Jason Matheny, President and Chief Executive Officer of the RAND Cooperation and Commissioner of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, and Mr. Shyam Sankar, Chief Technology Officer of Palantir.

 

“The Internet was founded in 1983 and Section 230 didn’t come into play until 1996. We’ve been discussing ever since how we could have done more and if it’s gone too far and who’s accountable. Now that we’re coming into the age of AI and we’re going to be so dependent on it, what could we be doing now that we didn’t do when the Internet came into play?” Senator Manchin questioned in part. “The stakes are so high and we can learn from our mistakes and put those guardrails in now…On behalf of Senator Rounds and myself and our Subcommittee here, we ask that you provide us a report as quickly as possible on what you think can and should be done. We can then start looking into how we can write legislation and not repeat the mistakes of the past.”

“Private industries have to buy the majority of the data they need to feed into their AI, but the DoD is in a unique position given the wealth of data they’re collecting on a daily basis. The problem seems to be making sure that data is in all the same format for AI to recognize and use,” Senator Manchin continued. “How would you summarize the Department of Defense’s data management practices? How could they be improved to make sure that every bit of data that we’re collecting is available for usage and not limited by silos between private contractors?”