House Democrats urge Speaker Johnson to cancel recess to pass AI safeguards, citing ‘catastrophic’ risk众议院民主党人敦促议长约翰逊取消休会，尽快通过人工智能安全保障措施，并指出人工智能存在“灾难性”风险。
A group of House Democratic lawmakers is pressuring Speaker Mike Johnson to reconvene the chamber immediately and cancel an upcoming break to address what they describe as the “catastrophic risk posed by advanced artificial intelligence.”
Finn Gomez/Getty Images/File
A group of House Democratic lawmakers is pressuring Speaker Mike Johnson to reconvene the chamber immediately and cancel an upcoming break to address what they describe as the “catastrophic risk posed by advanced artificial intelligence.”
In a letter to the speaker, the Democrats cite potential threats, including “mass cybersecurity breaches and development of biological or chemical weapons,” and point to recent examples of the possible misuse of artificial intelligence by foreign actors.
“Reasonable minds may disagree about precisely how Congress should regulate this rapidly evolving technology. We cannot disagree about the imperative for Congress to act,” the letter states. It is signed by Reps. Sam Liccardo, George Whitesides, Lori Trahan and Ted Lieu, who call on Speaker Johnson to bring the House back “immediately and remain in session until Congress advances meaningful, bipartisan AI safeguards.”
The House reconvenes Monday for a legislative week, but plans to recess after Thursday for several weeks, returning November 9 after the midterm elections. Members had been scheduled to work at the Capitol the last two weeks of September, but House leaders earlier this month canceled those two weeks, giving members more time to campaign in their districts ahead of the elections.
“While AI safety experts and Americans increasingly urge action to confront this conflagration of risk, Congress fiddles,” said the House members’ letter.
The letter pointed to several recent incidents documenting risks and the potential for misuse of artificial intelligence. For example, it cited a report from Anthropic this week that said it disrupted efforts to use its Claude models “in ways that could support biological weapons development.”
The company also said it disrupted a Chinese government-linked surveillance and recruitment operation targeting Uyghurs in Syria, and in another instance, an Iran-linked effort to use Claude to analyze publicly accessible data “to develop targeting recommendations against US naval forces in the region.”
Finn Gomez/Getty Images/文件
一群众议院民主党议员正在向议长迈克·约翰逊施压，要求他立即重新召开众议院会议，并取消即将到来的休会，以解决他们所说的“先进人工智能带来的灾难性风险”。
民主党人在致议长的信中列举了潜在威胁，包括“大规模网络安全漏洞和生物或化学武器的研发”，并指出了外国势力可能滥用人工智能的近期案例。
“对于国会究竟应该如何监管这项快速发展的技术，理性人士或许会有分歧。但我们都一致认为，国会必须采取行动，”信中写道。这封信由众议员萨姆·利卡多、乔治·怀特塞兹、洛里·特拉汉和特德·刘联署，他们呼吁众议院议长约翰逊立即召集众议院复会，“并保持开会状态，直到国会推进切实有效的、两党支持的人工智能安全保障措施。”
众议院将于周一复会，开始为期一周的立法工作，但计划在周四之后休会数周，于11月9日中期选举后复会。议员们原定于9月最后两周在国会大厦工作，但众议院领导人在本月初取消了这两周的安排，以便议员们有更多时间在选举前在其选区开展竞选活动。
“尽管人工智能安全专家和美国民众越来越敦促采取行动应对这场风险风暴，但国会却袖手旁观，”众议院议员们在信中写道。
信中列举了近期发生的几起事件，这些事件都记录了人工智能的风险和潜在滥用风险。例如，信中引用了Anthropic公司本周发布的一份报告，该报告称，该公司阻止了有人以“可能支持生物武器研发的方式”使用其Claude模型。
该公司还表示，它破坏了一项与中国政府有关的针对叙利亚维吾尔族人的监视和招募行动；在另一起事件中，它破坏了一项与伊朗有关的行动，该行动利用 Claude 分析公开可获取的数据，“以制定针对该地区美国海军部队的打击目标建议”。