Congressman-elect Scott Wiener authored the country's first major state AI safety law, and he is heading to a Democratic House majority that appears ready to regulate the technology at the national level. He is also a freshman, which makes the most powerful committee assignments harder to get, Mission Local reported.
"The president obviously may not care about what good we can accomplish here, but we'll see what actually happens when push comes to shove," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, ranking member on the House Committee on Science, Space and Tech. "The midterms showed loud and clear that Americans want responsible action relating to AI." The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has been a main venue for AI-safety fights, and rarely do first-term representatives get a spot. AI safety experts and lobbyists doubt Wiener will get on that panel, even as Democrats' share of seats is expected to grow, Mission Local reported. They said his likelier route is through Lofgren's Science Committee, which is open to first-timers, or a new select committee House Democrats have been mulling specifically for AI. "I welcome all excitement over joining our committee, and I am excited to speak with prospective members about it," Lofgren said.
Wiener told MIT Technology Review that he would be eager to serve on a select committee on AI, if created. He declined to comment for Mission Local's story. "I would be jaw-dropped if Scott Wiener didn't get the House Committee on Science, Space and Tech," said one AI safety lobbyist in D.C., granted anonymity to speak freely. The timing, Mission Local noted, comes as outside evaluators at the Berkeley-based nonprofit Model Evaluation and Threat Research released a Nov. 5 report on work at San Francisco-based Anthropic. METR said AI is not yet able to make "highly significant and fully autonomous contributions" to the most important parts of the model training process, and Anthropic redacted major portions of the evidence it provided. Those reactions, and the unresolved committee assignments, are the limits of what this report establishes. Wiener has not been named to a committee in the account Mission Local published.