Global Technology Competition in the Age of AI

Good morning. I'm Gregory Allen, the director of the Wadwani Center for AI and Advanced Technologies here at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Today we've got Senator Todd Young and Senator Michael Bennett joining us for a conversation on global technology competition in the age of AI. This is a topic that's on everyone's minds here in Washington DC where AI and its effect on geopolitics continues to feature in just about every major discussion we have. Senators, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

Thanks for having us, Greg. Thanks for having us.

So, I want to begin by talking about global technology competition in the larger sense. What are the stakes of this competition as you see it? And if it's all right, Senator Young, I'll start with you.

Uh certainly uh the stakes are uh they're first uh enormous and uh our very values and way of life are at stake. I I know that that seems uh perhaps over wrought to some, but as you look throughout history, differential rates of growth between different uh countries uh uh or regions and differential rates of technological development, which of course is related to their rates of of growth, have have led to different uh levels of of military power and military success in their campaign. So our ability to defend our way of life is at stake here. But it's not just that. It's also our material welfare is so many modern technologies uh our dual use that is military use as well as private sector use uh our productivity as an economy and therefore our wealth as individuals and households is very much tied to our advancement in modern technologies. Which is why it's incredibly important that we're investing in these technologies. We're investing in people uh to uh design, develop, make these technologies and we're ensuring that as these technologies are developed, our values are embedded in them and we can uh perhaps tease that concept out later.

Terrific. Senator Bennett, anything you'd like to add?

Well, I'd like to just add that I agree with everything Todd Young just said. I mean the first part of it is at least in my mind is how important us it is for us to understand in a world that's moving as fast as this world is and technology is moving as fast as technology is where where can the United States compete and where do we want to be able to continue to compete. The place where I realized this was a real problem was sitting on the intelligence committee and there was just one day that you know arrived when the committee realized that China was exporting Beijing was exporting telecommunications technology all over the world in the form of Huawei's hardware and the west had no we didn't have a competitive offering and European countries and other companies were embedding basically embedding Beijing surveillance state in their infrastructure as a result of that lack of offering from the west and everybody in the committee looked at each other and said how is it possible that this is happening and the difficulty with it was that we didn't have any industrial process set up to compete so that's one just one modest example of the challenge a real life example of the challenge and then to just finish I couldn't agree more we this is is an issue of values. You know, it's an issue of what kind of world we want to live in. Beijing. There was a time in these in panels like this uh on think tanks in Washington DC when American politicians were saying, "Hey man, this is going to be great. When the internet hits China, they'll democratize, you know, they will they they will change the way they approach the world as a result of technology." The opposite has been true. They have used this technology, the internet and and other technology to concretize their surveillance state not just in China but around the world. They've exported that surveillance state around the world. That's what they were trying to do with the Huawei technology I mentioned in Europe. We need to make sure that as we develop these new technologies where Todd Young has been such a leader on AI for example that we're doing it in ways that are actually compatible and consistent with our values and that we're offering humanity something that looks a lot different than what Xi Jinping is offering them with this technology. So I think there's a the the the essential nature of I think humanity is at stake here.

Senator Bennett, you very persuasively talked about this moment, you know, the wakeup call that you had that we were in the midst of this technology competition with China. And you know, during the Cold War, the United States had an overarching strategy, VCB, the Soviet Union in containment. And this was a strategy that was pursued across multiple presidential administrations across multiple decades, mostly consistently. And I'm curious, you know, do you already have a sense of what the highlevel strategy should be for the United States in this technology competition with China?

You know, let me say one. I don't think it's probably containment, but you know, we've sort of we're in a different world than Kennan was in, but I do do think something you just said is so important. I want to underscore it. And that is that during the cold war, every president knew what their job was visav the Soviet Union. They knew what their job was with respect to the transatlantic alliance, you know, and it wasn't that we didn't have different opinions or the different parties didn't see it differently, but each president knew what their job was going to be that we we're facing exactly that same thing in in thei in in the world today, certainly with respect to Beijing and certainly with respect to the technology competition that we're in. And as Todd mentioned, a lot of this stuff is dual use. So I'm not saying we should be containing China. I don't think they can. they're too integrated in the global economy and and that would create too much hardship across the world. But when I think again about my spot on the intelligence committee and seeing how China has built a space capability over the last 10 or 15 years that's based on stealing our technology, it does sort of raise the question, how would we have approached this differently in an era of containment? And I think we would have we would have focused heavily on the kind of R&D that Todd talked about a minute ago on the one hand and on the other hand we would have made sure that we had the sort of export controls in place. We weren't blly sending or not even asking the question about what we were sending to Beijing for them to be able to build that space capa capability. So I think we're going to be in a in an integrated economy with China for the rest of our lives. But I think we have to do a much better job over the next 50 years of developing our own techn technological leadership and doing what we can to make sure that we can slow down their pace or at least that they're not stealing our IP at every drop of the hat, which is what they have been doing over the last decades.

Yeah. So, Senator Young, you know, if if containment is perhaps not the right strategy for this era that we're in, what is the right strategy?

My views align very much, I won't surprise you, with with Michael's. Um, I would just say uh some points of emphasis we can learn from the last several generations of of foreign policy making what has worked, what hasn't worked. One of the things that certainly worked is making sure that we harnessed we cultivated our dynamic economy. The dynamism which has long been uh a hallmark a feature of of the American economy and more broadly sort of the western uh economic approach is something that uh we have to be very sensitive to. That means having forgiving tax rates uh in inviting regulatory atmospheres and making critical investments in our people. uh so that they can uh be productive citizens and and add to our national power uh by extension. Another piece of this is relatedly allies and partners. We learned during the cold war during the period of containment just how important it was to have allies and partners how to dig your well before you are are thirsty geopolitically speaking and and uh nurture those relationships. If we can do that within the context of a democratic capitalist system, we're inviting more people into that system uh if they want to participate uh and and uh we're we're not only uh adding to the wealth of of the counterparties in different countries uh but we're also u you building that connective tissue for uh for securing that system through military power if necessary. And then lastly, I do think we have to uh place some emphasis on at once starving u the the economy of of state capitalists uh authoritarian regimes like China uh of the critical inputs that they they are trying to advance in order to undermine that system I just spoke to. Inputs like uh leading edge semiconductors with the recognition that it is a state capitalist economy that uh some folks within our system will always want to trade with them and in light of that reality the American people should have the opportunity to trade certain goods and services as well. I'll say this is where standard setting becomes very important. Standards within the broader system but also standards within given technology areas uh as it relates to computer chips for example. If we can come up with standards uh for development that require the Chinese, for example, to uh abide by those standards, if they want to trade into this massive non-Chinese economy, they're going to have to abide by our standards as it relates to things like think of artificial intelligence, privacy, bias, consumer protection, and and and so forth. So u that is that's one reason why uh it is so important that uh as Congress talks about artificial intelligence and and so many other platform technologies like synthetic biology uh that we get this right.

So there's a bottomless list of issues that need to be addressed as part of technology competition. But one of the reasons why we were so excited to have the two of you here is that you've co-sponsored a piece of legislation, the Global Technology Leadership Act. uh that is intended to address parts of these issues, not the whole issue, which as I said is is bottomless. But um I wanted to ask what's the motivations for this legislation? What is the problem that it's trying to solve? And Senator Bennett, if I could start with you.

Yeah. Well, the motivation came out of that experience that I had on the Intel committee on on on 5G, you know, and realizing that we had no we had maybe one part of government had some sense that they were doing what they were doing with telecom, but another didn't. We had no idea what the private sector's view of any of this was. And and it occurred to me that we should put together some sort of institutional framework to be able to basically do an annual net technology assessment where we could look and say, okay, where are the US's strengths and where are adversaries strengths? Uh where are the US's weaknesses? Where are adversaries weaknesses? And consider how to approach that in a strategic way. And as I said earlier, from administration to administration, so that it didn't matter whether there was a Republican or a Democratic president, but that the DNA for dealing with this was was built into the structure of our government. And I think that as you said, uh this the notion that this is a bottomless pit is a re reality because you got to make decisions about what really matters and what doesn't. You got to make decisions about what mattered yesterday and what doesn't really matter today. And I think Congress is institutionally really poorly situated to do that kind of analysis. You know, it's charitable. Yeah. To to be charitable about it. And I think that you better to have a group of people that are that are assigned the task of reporting to the administration and to the Congress and who are set up in an institutional way to be able to deal with the rapid changes that are happening in technology so that we're not studying stuff that's obsolete or doesn't matter anymore. And so, and it matters not just where we are, it obviously matters where we are in competition with Beijing when it comes to things like AI, when it comes to things like quantum, when it comes to things like telecom. Um, so that was that was the idea for the for the office. I'm very very glad that uh Senator Young has been willing to be my my co-sponsor of this bill and I think between the two of us, we're going to find a way to get it passed. every day that goes by, you feel the pressure building and building to try to have something institutionalized here so that we we we know that we're actually not falling behind.

And Senator Young, so the the legislation would create an office of global competition analysis to as Senator Bennett said produce this technology net assessment every year or something equivalent to that. And I just want to ask you, you know, what are the sort of problems with the information and analysis available to policy makers and policy implementers that this office and its work is going to help solve?

Yeah. Well, thank you. And and Michael has shown tremendous leadership in this area, conceiving of this uh vision, consulting with stakeholders. uh bringing me in. Uh they that was easy to do and and so I'll try and do my part. But um no listen one of the things uh that as as I began uh speaking with Michael about this uh that I learned early on is that uh for some period of time uh members of Congress and other stakeholders who interact with our government or within government have been trying to give clarity on our disposition as it relates to other countries when it comes to particular tech areas. uh where are we weak, where are we strong, what are the particular weaknesses and and strengths, where are investments needed, where are our vulnerabilities and and and so forth. And u increasingly, which is one of the reasons for this uh forum, we're finding this is a major area of policym. But there wasn't a particular go-to area within government uh to get to aggregate this information and to put it in a consumable fashion uh for members of Congress and others. So, some had uh proposed creating a new intelligence department within the Department of Commerce, something I'm open to, but it does seem as though we have a constellation of of different intel agencies. It seems to me this is a more modest approach and uh therefore more likely to ultimately uh see its way to uh passage but uh exactly what's needed which is an assessment of all the things I I just indicated and uh in an ongoing basis as opposed to uh something like the H House China Committee which has been a very visible and I think constructive bipartisan committee over the last year plus. However, um it's temporary. It's temporary. Uh and therefore its charge is is limited and and uh no doubt uh it will be uh uh there will be consideration of closing it down at at at some point. So I think it's it's quite clear to me that we're going to need at least for the next gen generation perhaps in perpetuity uh analysis along the lines of of the office of global uh tech analysis.

Terrific. Now, this office uh that you're proposing to create would exist within the executive branch, but obviously Congress has plenty of role uh to have in this. And so, I'm curious, you know, not just looking forward, but also what has happened over the past several years. You know, what does effective congressional action look like in this technology competition? Are there success stories that you would point to? And Senator Young, if we could continue with you.

Uh yes. Uh I I I think you look back to the Cold War, the early days of the Cold War, uh Congress uh was able to uh get past actually a Congressman John McCormack who later later became speaker of the house uh introduced and was able to persuade his colleagues to pass a national aeronautic and space act uh which established NASA. That took some money. That took uh in retrospect a modest amount of money when you consider the fact that our economy spends off trillion dollar u uh value added each year in the aerospace industry which was uh uh certainly catalyzed by that creation of NASA. So uh much it's very analogous to what we're seeing now which is uh the area of space and space technology became a dual use that is commercial uh as well as governmental uh area of technology. I think we're seeing the same thing with respect to many different tech vectors right now. And so if we can make the uh critical seed investments where necessary, if we can come up with a favorable regulatory atmosphere uh so that our commercial partners are able to thrive there there are upside benefits for the American people not just in terms of national security but uh also uh the commercial applications.

You know, you mentioned the legacy of Congressman John McCormack and his work on founding NASA. That event, of course, was in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik. Yes. Uh it was that same time period when we created what would ultimately become the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA, a legendary technology institution. My favorite piece of legislation that came out of that sort of post Sputnik whirlwind uh was the National Security Education Act where we literally as a matter of national security uh radically overhauled the high school curriculums on science and engineering uh and dramatically improved the education and our output of those types of people. And additionally, we increased the number of graduates in scientific and engineering field because we recognized Sputnik told us we're in the midst of a major science and technological competition and we have to be willing to make the investments in education uh in order to win.

Senator, I know that you have a background in education and I'd love to get your perspective on it's such a I mean there's so much to talk about here.

When I became the superintendent of the Denver public schools, one of the things I noticed was how terrible our our our how poorly our students were doing in mathematics. That wasn't during that era. Just to clarify. Well, no. Although during that era, I was smiling when you were talking about NASA because during that era, I can remember everybody, you know, people if people ask the question, what do we get out of government? You know, back then as a kid, you could have said Tang. You know, we got that out of and it wasn't mocking like that was a good thing and we had got it because ice cream of this exactly the out of the space program and and American people knew that that was just those were little examples of other things that we were getting. When I became the superintendent in Denver, I real I looked at the remediation rates for our kids in mathematics and they were staggeringly high. you know, even kids that were graduating, going on to college needed remediation in math. And I started to look, well, why is what's caused this? And the answer was that for our high school requirements, we were only requiring kids to take two years of math, nth grade and 10th grade, unless they passed the algebra exam in the eighth grade, in which case we said, "Your reward for being the best mathematician in our in your class is you only have to take one year of math." So, we were sending a signal to our strongest mathematicians. We don't need you to be in a place where you can compete. You know, today to get out of the Denver public schools, you need four years of math. And if you take that early year earlier, if you pass that algebra exam, you get higher level math before you leave. We are in as much of a competition as we were in those days when we made the kind of commitment that we made the the national commitment we made to raising academic standards in this country. We are in that place again today. The the difficulty for us is we live in a democracy you know and we are competing with countries around the world that are organized very differently than we are. I would never give up our democracy. I'm a huge believer in the innovation that Todd talked about in our economy and a huge believer in the rule of law, a huge believer in our commitment to fight corruption. All of those kinds of things that our our adversaries around the world don't have. But I do want us to be able to uh compete effectively with their state sponsored capitalism, their form of that. That's going to require us to be able to work across the public and private sector in a unified effort in a democracy to be able to compete. And I think we can do it. This this this office is one of those examples. Todd's leadership on the on the chips act, you know, which is a huge success uh of this Congress is is a modern-day example of the kind of investment that we have to make. And I would just add on top of that um our the investment Congress recently made in making sure we have broadband built out to this entire country is not only going to be able to mean the country will compete. Parts of the country that have historically left been left behind especially rural parts of this country where there's a lot of brain power but people need to be connected to the internet to be able to compete are now going to be able to compete as a result of that. So, if I could just build on that, I I think we need to use this generational perhaps multi-generational competition of values between the United States and and the Chinese Communist Party to become a better version of ourselves and to give the American people a stake in this. That is what I see as the endgame of this effort uh from members of Congress. So, we if we can focus on that loadar a how do we win? How do we win economically and by extension militarily and technologically? Uh but B, how do we give every American an opportunity opportunity to meaningfully participate in this hyperdamic technologyoriented economy in the China competition uh then uh we we will win we we will win this generational competition. We'll defend our values and we'll become all better off uh in the process. and and uh I think that's happening. I think this uh initiative though seemingly narrow uh to create this office will lay a predicate if we can get it established for more action once we identify weaknesses in our technologies as it relates to uh various uh high-tech areas.

So, Senator, you were paying homage to some of your forebears in Congress just a moment ago, but I do want to give you the opportunity to celebrate some of the achievements of this Congress, namely the the Chips and Science Act that that Senator Bennett just talked about. Is this an example of the type of analysis that this office would produce that would inform these kinds of legislation making historic investments in American technological industries? What do you see uh as the the lessons of the Chips and Science Act? Is this a replicable model?

I do I I do see this as as the sort of uh area that would lend itself to this kind of analysis. However, I would say the semiconductor deficiency we had in this uh country, the vulnerability we had uh within our supply chains at least in retrospect uh was was pretty obvious. It's stark uh the vulnerabilities we had. it will be less clear in some other areas which is why the discernment of of people within an office uh would be helpful. But uh what what has the result been? Well, the the money uh to entice a a production ecosystem for semiconductors is already flowing. But the mere signal by passing the Chips and Science Act and signing it into law uh that has been created has led to over 200 billion dollars of private investment being unlocked. That's an enormous return on uh our investment uh and and we'll just continue to see uh more of those in investments occurring in coming years. and the excitement, the human dimension here, the excitement which uh Michael just spoke to eloquently of our young people to become involved in a technology uh economy and and to see themselves playing a role perhaps as a technician, perhaps as a postoc uh you know actually designing some of these high-tech components. uh it's it's really been significant in my own state where you're starting to see a a semiconductor and a hard tech economy developing but also in states across the country and and so to me that's that's very uh promising.

So just staying with the CHIPS act uh for one moment, you know, this is one of the most remarkable industrial policy investments that the United States government has made in decades, frankly. Um and already we're seeing around $50 billion being devoted to the semiconductor industry over the next 5 years or so. But I just want to because we're having a conversation about technology competition. I wanted to ask that you know the the Chinese consulting firm JW Insights they tallied up the amount of subsidization that Chinese semiconductor firms get from all their provincial governments from their city governments from their national governments and they estimated that that Chinese government subsidization of the Chinese semiconductor industry is around $64 billion per year. You know more than we're spending over the next 5 years. And so I just want to ask is is what we're doing enough or is is there something else that needs to be done as well?

Well, we know it's enough for now because of the numbers I spoke to because of the private sectors that uh monies that are being unlocked. Uh it's something we continue to assess, but we continue to assess it with the knowledge that uh the Chinese investment numbers and the American uh public investment numbers will never align because our system is much different than our own. We have the broadest deepest capital markets uh in the world in all of human history. Uh we have efficiencies uh that a market uh economy demands. Uh we have numerous benefits that they don't including including uh a constellation of allies and partners with whom we can work. So uh the the virtues and the benefits of comparative advantage still apply to this industrial policy just not to one large economy country by the name of the people's republic of China. Right? So um all all of those differences need to be taken into account uh as as we implement this law. uh but there are other technology areas uh I think uh Michael understands and and uh increasingly my colleagues are coming to understand where we are going to have to make investments particularly investments in human capital which historically uh the federal government has done and done well uh but also uh some incentives from here here and there in uh basic infrastructure and research and uh we'll get more clarity on those things in the future perhaps through the office of of global tech analysis. Uh but uh I think it's an it's somewhat an apples and orange comparison the the Chinese versus uh American investments. I will say it's helpful to focus our minds. It it does keep us uh focused on on the challenges here and we can't take for granted our ability to win this competition.

Keeping with the topic of semiconductors for a moment, you know, the chips act is obviously the most important offensive maneuver that we've taken here promoting US and strengthening US industry. There's also some defensive measures that we've taken to to address China's semiconductor sector and its its relevance to their AI sector. So in October of last year, the Biden administration released a new set of export control regulations that were in some ways a reversal of 25 years of trade and technology policy towards China. Uh actively restricting China's access to advanced AI chips, uh the semiconductors that'll power advanced AI models and also restricting China's chipm equipment purchases from the United States. So I wanted to ask, do you support this policy? Is this a policy that's sort of indicative of of what you're thinking about when you think about technology competition?

I definitely support that policy and I think that it's really more like 50 years of of policy that we're now beginning to unravel because there was here I think a consensus in fact they used to call it the Washington consensus that um we were going to have uh a system of free trade around the world that somehow was going to the benefit of everybody and in ways it turns out that it it really didn't you know and we were competing not in on a on a on a fair or a level playing field. We have been competing all these years with China's version of state sponsored capitalism. That's really different than capitalism. That's really different than free trade. And uh the United States, I would say, in some sense, surrendered in that in that in that version of state sponsored capitalism. We did not compete effectively. And the kind of export your controls you're talking about I think are are part of an effort for us to say okay we need to compete effectively. We need to have uh a level playing field. We don't need better than a level playing field. I think it's okay that they're spending more money in some sense than we are in certain kind of sectors because we're going to beat them so badly in terms of innovation. We're going to beat them so badly in terms of our techn technological lead leadership if we just organize our thoughts in ways that make sense where we're making the investments here where we're being thoughtful about the kind of export controls that that that you're talking about where we're making sure that technology is being developed in ways that are consistent with our values and our freedoms and our commitment to uh to democracy and where we are and Todd mentioned this earlier where we are making sure that we are transmitting this technology to our partners around the world so that they can have the benefit of developing it as well both for commercial use and for and and in in some cases for dual use so that we know they're not relying on Beijing. I think that's all to the good but it's going to require us to be much more strategic about this than we have been for the last 40 or 50 years. And I and I look at those export controls exactly in that in that context.

Please, if I could build on that and that's how I regard this follow-on comment as is a building on on statements uh with which I uh agree but I do want to um sort of underscore that our our belief in trade in international trade in the virtues and benefits to the American people of comparative advantage should not change in general. uh I would regard China as an exception uh to uh what is otherwise a very healthy and important force. In fact, I think the one missing element for all the commenation I have of of my uh counterparties on Republican and Democrat side of the aisle for for this industrial policy, the one major uh infirmity of the current policy is that we have not further opened up the avenues for trade. In fact, we've gone the opposite direction and therefore we're not harnessing fully maximizing the benefits of comparative advantage with Japan, with the European Union, uh with countless innovative uh economies uh around the world. So, we we can do both. We can we can place strictctures on the export of high-tech components uh and dual use components to uh a state capitalist regime like the Chinese Communist Party. But we can also continue to trade robustly and to adjust um those trade policies based on risk assessments, interruptions of of supply chains moving forward. So that's a nuance that is sometimes lost in the reporting and I think the analysis of what needs to happen move forward. It may or may not be an area of disagreement but I will say as it relates to the politics trade is not easy on the left or the right these days. So I want to continue to make an argument for trade. It's and I'll and it's not an area of disagreement with me. I I agree.

So let me add a grace note of my own which is that I think in our hemisphere there is an enormous opportunity for us and in our relation trading relationships with Canada with Mexico with Latin America generally exactly to be able to say look we're 330 million people how are we going to compete effectively in this landscape that we're talking about integrating ourselves much in a much more compelling way in our hemisphere along the kind of trade principles that Todd was talking about I think gives me I mean I I just think that's a place with enormous potential for us and we've talked about that here at the center for strategic and international studies before. I got to add one last thing too um because this is another place where the left and right is breaking down on us. That's on immigration. You know immigration has been such a core strength for this country when it runs well in terms of uh technology in particular. You think about the leadership of the technology companies all around the United States. And by the way, Beijing doesn't exactly pursue the same immigration policies. There's nobody crawling over the Gobi Desert to try to get to try to get there. They are trying to get here. And we need to I would just it's just a reminder that once we get past the issues that we're confronting right now on immigration, we need a long-term policy that reminds us that a third of our economic growth for the last hundred years or so has come as a result of immigration. Twothirds of it's been organic and it's a critical component to the kind of stuff that Todd and I are talking about. We are singing from the same hymn book there. It would be a lot more interesting if we disagreed right now. Yeah.

Well, uh, you've made some really exceptional points on on trade and immigration. I do want to, you know, because this legislation that you've introduced kind of relates to the analytic analysis capacity of the United States government and its ability to understand what's going on in the technology ecosystem and then make great decisions from it in a timely fashion. There is one cabinet secretary out there begging for this right now. Uh, and that is Secretary of Commerce Gina Romano. And I'll just paraphrase, you know, her words on this topic. She said that export controls 10 years ago were a comparatively sleepy topic in US national security. And then with the moves taken by the Trump administration, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, uh with the Biden administration export controls on China's semiconductor sector, suddenly export controls are one of the hottest topics in US national security and especially technology competition. and she's pointing out that her budget for analysis and enforcement uh is flat or perhaps even declining in inflationadjusted terms. And so I just wanted to ask, you know, if I could get your reaction to Secretary Roando's uh comments.

Well, I think she's living in the 21st century and and that that's where they're doing the work. I'd say that this is one of the reasons why I think Todd's idea and my idea is a good one because they could it could help us think about things like, you know, when budgets need to be uh increased to do certain things to be able to make us more competitive globally in terms of technology. So, I don't want to I'm sure if Gina is asking for it, she probably has a good reason to be asking for it and I'll look at it. I think much more more broadly, this is exactly the reason why we need some people in in the federal government that are devoted to these questions and can provide answers to the the the the commerce committee or to the intelligence committee or to an administration that says if you really want to solve this problem, you could make some investments uh in the following ways that could really help us get it done.

And Senator Young, do you have a perspective on uh Secretary Romano's, you know, request for more resources to make a more muscular export control posture?

I do. uh in in fact uh chairman Michael McCall the foreign affairs uh committee in the house has put together a report on this very matter and they recommend uh investing in her capabilities but also identifying some efficiencies so that we don't have to spend an additional dollar of of taxpayer money on on things that aren't needed. Uh we we cannot fall victim to uh this vis visceral uh small libertarian impulse not to ever invest in in uh government especially critical functions like this one. But at the same time, we have to husband the resources of our constituents wisely and and and uh so I think uh Chairman McCall's report will will guide us uh in that direction. And uh uh I agree with Michael, however, that we could get more clarity on these matters on an ongoing basis and not have to wait for a crisis, which is what this could might be characterized as within the Department of Commerce if instead we had some early warning through uh a dedicated office to analyze such things.

So obviously the export controls that we've been talking about are targeting China's artificial intelligence sector. One of the most important initiatives in Congress right now on artificial intelligence is the bipartisan group of four of which you are a member uh with the AI insight forums working towards comprehensive AI legislation. I wonder if you could just give us an update on where you are in these efforts.

Senator Young. Well, it's always dangerous to have expectations heightened in this town and uh in this political atmosphere, but I think we have made a valuable contribution to uh Congress's understanding of what artificial intelligence is u and uh both the opportunities and the challenges that it will present to our national security to our civil rights and all kinds of other things. But the upside potential is amazing. uh we uh the the group of four as you have styled it had have invited in members of the Senate as well as their staff for a number of months and we took notes extensive notes. We are in the process, the four of us in our in our offices of of uh distilling those notes in readable fashion, identifying common interests and uh areas where we might legislate, but ultimately uh it's our intention and uh Senator Schumer has has been uh very clear about this to charge the committees of jurisdiction with legislating, making the Senate work. And so, uh, we on the Republican side intend to hold him to his word and I expect him fully to keep it as he did during the Chips and Science Act debate. And, uh, in short order, I think you'll see some committees of jurisdiction holding hearings, markups, and trying to pass and send to the floor bills related to making sure we strike the right balance between regulating the risks on one hand, but enabling the innovation on the other.

And just to make sure I understand you correctly on the output of of this process, uh when Senator Schumer announced this initiative actually here at CSIS uh last year, um he described one of the outputs as comprehensive AI legislation, but what you've described it might not just be one bill, it might be many bills. Is that fair to say?

That is fair to say. If if you look back on the regular order sort of chips and science process uh that we took uh Senator Schumer and I had a base piece of legislation that we had developed began as the endless frontier act and became something else and then uh members uh through their thought leadership were able to uh pass their own bills through various committees and then it was aggregated together on the floor went through multiple iterations in that case and ultimately became the chips and science act. But we expect something similar to happen here. There are already members who've put forward I I think a lot of strong and thoughtful solutions to different uh challenges and opportunities we have and and we want to uh rather than duplicating those efforts uh or supplanting them uh we want to uh actually complement their efforts with our own legislative efforts.

Well, I had the privilege of participating in one of these insight forums uh that you put on and I was amazed because there were senators not only on the deis but there were senators in the audience listening for hours to executives in the AI sector to academics and scholars who study these issues. The hunger to learn is really palpable in Congress right now.

Well, and you know, that's one of the things that the vast majority of my colleagues, you know, share uh with Michael, myself, we're we we have a thirst. We have a hunger uh to learn new things, to come up with solutions to problems. And often times our standard committee hearings where television cam cameras are there and members have five minutes uh they become sort of performative uh events rather than opportunities to learn. So uh this was a learning opportunity and and uh their performance uh will be ahead of us and and there's a role for that of course too because the public needs to um have some insight into uh our our broader debates.

Uh Senator Bennett, artificial intelligence obviously one of the most important topics in global technology competition. Is there something you'd like to add here?

Well, what what I would add to it is that I think that the process that uh Chuck Schumer and Todd and the others had set up were really helpful and brought and and brought our focus onto artificial intelligence. My view of this situation, u partly coming as a school superintendent again and seeing the tr um profound mental health effects that have resulted from uh in part uh our complete lack of regulation of social media companies has raised in my mind the question of what is our role in Washington to put the American people in a negotiation with some of the biggest tech companies in this world. And I don't want to just have AI. I don't want our focus on AI to mean that we're going to lose not pay attention to those questions that we haven't addressed. You know, and this is not this may be a place where we disagree, but I'm just going to say it. I believe these guys are stripmining our privacy. I believe they're stripmining our data. They've created huge mental health challenges for for our kids. And now AI is going to be on top of all of that. And um I think it's very important for us to find a way to put the American people in negotiation with these folks. So I hope one of the things that comes out of these debates is a recognition that Congress may not be the right place to be able to do this. that we may need a new agency like you know in prior earlier times when Teddy Roosevelt was president realized te changing technology was going to change um the way that the administrative state was going to have to respond and in this case we're going to need dedicated people that actually understand this space AI and all of it um and the national security implications as well because of course we've seen over and over again, our adversaries using these pipes to to divide Americans from one another in ways that advantage them and not ourselves. I just think we have a real opportunity to explore what that would actually look like. And I proposed I proposed uh that we actually create a new agency to do that as well, but that's probably for a different day at CSIS.

Sir, I just would quickly add to that. I I I think it'll be interesting and very important how we structure um our effort that is whether we create a new agency or just uh to re-energize an existing uh entity within the white house or what approach we take. From my own perspective, how I'm looking at this is is artificial intelligence actually been around a long time. We've just seen rapid advancements recently because of uh the the programming of algorithms and some breakthroughs there as well as breakthroughs uh in terms of our chips technology. But with that said, um I think we should do here what we've done for frankly generations which is uh take existing laws and prohibitions and concerns which presumably reflect our values and adapt them to changes in society and technology. And some of that will just involve taking say civil rights laws or consumer protection laws and coming up with new regulations in certain areas. And this won't be most of the cases. The challenge will instead be novel uh entirely of of a different order than we've seen in the past and there will be some neglected areas of policym that we need to revisit. I actually uh uh uh agree with that. And uh if we think about it that way, this whole exercise becomes a little less daunting except for the human resource challenge of bringing into government the expertise in artificial intelligence so that uh many of the civil servants can make those adaptations uh to current and and everchanging reality.

Well, Senator Bennett, Senator Young, we appreciate your leadership on this incredible topic, this incredibly important topic, and we look forward to the next steps for the Global Technology Leadership Act. Thank you so much for coming to CSIS today.

Thank you for having us. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks for [Music]