LAS VEGAS, January 12, 2024 – U.S. senators highlighted their tech policy priorities on artificial intelligence and broadband connectivity at CES on Friday.

Sens. Ben Luján, D-New Mexico, Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, and John Hickenlooper, D-Colorado, sat on a panel moderated by Senator Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada.

Promise and perils of AI

The lawmakers highlighted their focus on mitigating the potential risks of implementing AI. 

Hickenlooper touted the AI Research, Innovation and Accountability Act, which he introduced in November with Luján and other members of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

That law would require businesses deploying AI in relation to critical infrastructure operation, biometric data collection, criminal justice, and other “critical-impact” uses to submit risk assessments to the Commerce Department. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, housed in the department, would be tasked with developing standards for authenticating human and AI-generated content online.

“AI is everywhere,” Hickenlooper said. “And every application comes with incredible opportunity, but also remarkable risks.”

Connectivity

Luján and Rosen expressed support for recent legislation introduced to extend the Affordable Connectivity Program. The fund, which provides a $30 monthly internet subsidy to 23 million low-income households, is set to dry up in April 2024 without more money from Congress.

The ACP Extension Act would provide $7 billion to keep the program afloat through 2024. It was first stood up with $14 billion from the Infrastructure Act in late 2021. 

“There are a lot of us working together,” Luján said, to keep the program alive for “people across America who could not connect, not because they didn’t have a connection to their home or business, but because they couldn’t afford it.”

Lawmakers, advocates, the Biden administration, and industry groups have been calling for months for additional funding, but the bill faces an uncertain future as House Republicans look to cut back on domestic spending.

Luján also stressed the need to reinstate the Federal Communications Commission’s spectrum auction authority.

“I’m ashamed to say it’s lapsed, but we need to get this done,” he said.

The Commission’s authority to auction off and issue licenses for the commercial use of electromagnetic spectrum expired for the first time in March 2023 after Congress failed to renew it. A stopgap law permitting the agency to issue already purchased licenses passed in December, but efforts at blanket reauthorization have stalled.

December 27, 2023 — August 2023 marked the one year anniversary of President Joe Biden’s signature law, the CHIPS and Science Act. On that occasion, the White House touted $166 billion dollars of new semiconductor investments and manufacturing projects into the United States.

As both Biden and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo have been quick to note, American ingenuity invented the semiconductor. But today, the U.S. currently produces only 12 percent of the world’s supply, none of which are the most advanced. This is down from 40 percent in 1990.

• On the Sixth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
  One-hundred-and 66 Billion Dollars of American Semiconductor Investment
  56 States and Territorial Broadband Offices Implementing BEAD
  4.8 Million Challenges to Broadband Coverage Data
  $3.6 Billion Funds Remaining in the Affordable Connectivity Program
  24 Reverse-Preemption Pole Attachment States (2023 edition)
  And One Artificial General Intelligence

The CHIPS Act provides $52 billion to incentivize chip companies to build factories in the U.S., aiming to reduce reliance on Asia for the crucial components used in everyday electronics. Over the summer, during the one-year anniversary, Biden administration officials touted investment commitments from companies like Micron, IBM and Wolfspeed.

The influx of cash is a relief for an industry disrupted by pandemic-related shutdowns’ impact on global supply chains. Automakers were especially impacted by the chip shortage, forcing production cuts and inventory reductions.

“The innovation and technology funded in the CHIPS Act is how we plan to expand the technological and national security advantages of America and our allies; these guardrails will help ensure we stay ahead of adversaries for decades to come,” Raimondo said.

White House takes a victory lap

In creating a 25 percent tax credit for capital investments in semiconductor manufacturing, the administration cited how companies have announced more than $166 billion in manufacturing in semiconductors and electronics, and at least 50 community colleges in 19 states have announced new or expanded programming to help American workers access jobs in the semiconductor industry.

In August, the Commerce Department announced the first round of grants under CHIPS to support the development of open and interoperable wireless networks, and the National Science Foundation and the Energy, Commerce, and Defense Departments announced progress toward establishing the National Semiconductor Technology Center.

Among the other milestones touted by the administration include:

• Supporting U.S. Semiconductor Manufacturing through $39 billion in semiconductor manufacturing incentives.
• The receipt of more than 460 statements of interest from companies for projects across 42 states interested in receiving CHIPS funding.
• The Department of Commerce has also stood up CHIPS for America, a team of more than 140 people working to support implementation of all aspects of the CHIPS incentives program.
• The Treasury Department’s proposed rule, in March, to provide guidance on the Advanced Manufacturing Investment Credit, that 25 percent investment tax credit.

Outstanding questions and labor shortage issues

There are also outstanding questions about whether the incentives in the law are sufficient to help level the playing field for U.S. companies versus lower building and operating costs in Asia.

The legislation requires companies receiving funds to commit to certain wage and labor requirements, including offering childcare benefits — measures some Republican legislators have criticized. Tensions between the U.S. and China also continue around supply chains for critical minerals needed for chip production.

For example, South Korea requested in May that the U.S. reassess the guardrail provisions it adopted in the CHIPS Act. South Korean companies Samsung and SK Hynix represent two of the world’s top manufacturers of memory chips and have invested billions of dollars in Chinese chip factories. The country is a leading chipmaker and also a major investor in the U.S.’s chip sector.

At Broadband Breakfast’s “Made in America” Summit on June 27, panelists raised concerns about workforce shortages in the country’s pursuit to become more independent in the sourcing of semiconductor chips.

In fact, they said, the industry could face a shortage of about 70,000 to 90,000 workers over the next few years.

Sign up for the Broadband Breakfast Club to access the complete videos from the Made in America Summit.

Maryam Rofougaran, cofounder and CEO of 5G chip manufacturer Movandi Corporation, pointed to a decrease in interest from high schoolers and college students in the field that is leading to a lack of skilled American workers in the development of the semiconductors.

Rofougaran called for immigration policies to be more friendly as America continues to look for highly skilled people in the semiconductor field, citing her own personal journey of immigration from Iran. “Immigration has been one of the greatest things for the U.S.,” she said.

Gene Irisari, head of semiconductor policy at Samsung, asked, “Where are all these workers going to come from? They can’t just come from the clusters where the semiconductor fabs are being created.

How will the CHIPS Act impact the AI race?

Indeed, in the chips race, China is both an ally and competitor. “China is a large supplier of raw materials needed for manufacturing and a large consumer of microchips,” said Shawn Muma, director of supply chain innovation and emerging technologies at the Digital Supply Chain Institute, speaking at the “Made in America” Summit.

But the CHIPS Act could also be a major front in the artificial intelligence race, with China’s ability to remain competitive depending on its ability to produce its own chips, as U.S. restrictions on the export of that product to the adversarial nation will hobble its ability to move forward.

“U.S. chip export sanctions are a huge roadblock” for AI development in China, said Qiheng Chen, a senior analyst at consulting firm Compass Lexecon, said at an August 2023 event by the Asia Society Policy Institute.

And former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said that United States needs to collaborate more with its allies to ensure semiconductor supply chain resilience.

Speaking at a Hudson Institute event in September 2023, the  former chairman of strategic advisory firm American Global Strategies said that it was necessary to collaborate with allies to onshore, moving plants onto domestic land, and “friend-shore,” moving plants into allying countries, manufacturing plants.

Failing to do so will subject the U.S. and its allies to additional risks in the future, he said.

See “The Twelve Days of Broadband” on Broadband Breakfast

• On the First Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
  One Artificial General Intelligence
• On the Second Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
  24 Reverse-Preemption Pole Attachment States (2023 edition)
  And One Artificial General Intelligence
• On the Third Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
  $3.6 Billion Funds Remaining in the Affordable Connectivity Program
  24 Reverse-Preemption Pole Attachment States (2023 edition)
  And One Artificial General Intelligence
• On the Fourth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
  4.8 Million Challenges to Broadband Coverage Data
  $3.6 Billion Funds Remaining in the Affordable Connectivity Program
  24 Reverse-Preemption Pole Attachment States (2023 edition)
  And One Artificial General Intelligence
• On the Fifth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
  56 States and Territorial Broadband Offices Implementing BEAD
  4.8 Million Challenges to Broadband Coverage Data
  $3.6 Billion Funds Remaining in the Affordable Connectivity Program
  24 Reverse-Preemption Pole Attachment States (2023 edition)
  And One Artificial General Intelligence
• On the Sixth Day of Broadband, my true love sent to me:
  One-hundred-and 66 Billion Dollars of American Semiconductor Investment
  56 States and Territorial Broadband Offices Implementing BEAD
  4.8 Million Challenges to Broadband Coverage Data
  $3.6 Billion Funds Remaining in the Affordable Connectivity Program
  24 Reverse-Preemption Pole Attachment States (2023 edition)
  And One Artificial General Intelligence

December 21, 2023 – Just over one year ago, most people in the technology and internet world would talk about passing the Turing test as if it were something far in the future.

This “test,” originally called the imitation game by computer scientist Alan Turing in 1950, is a hypothetical test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.

The year 2023 – and the explosive economic, technological, and societal force unleashed by OpenAI since the release of its ChatGPT on November 30, 2022 – make those days only 13 months ago seem quaint.

For example, users of large language models like ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Meta’s Llama and many others are daily interacting with machines as if they were simply very smart humans.

Yes, yes, informed users understand that Chatbots like these are simply using neural networks with very powerful predictive algorithms to come up with the probabilistic “next word” in a sequence begun by the questioner’s inquiry. And, yes, users understand the propensity of such machines to “hallucinate” information that isn’t quite accurate, or even accurate at all.

Which makes the Chatbots seem, well, a little bit more human.

Drama at OpenAI

At a Broadband Breakfast Live Online event on November 22, 2023, marking the one-year anniversary of ChatGPT’s public launch, our expert panelists focused on the regulatory uncertainty bequeathed by a much-accelerated form of artificial intelligence.

The event took place days after Sam Altman, CEO of the OpenAI, was fired – before rejoining the company on that Wednesday, with a new board of directors. The board members who forced Altman out (all replaced, except one) had clashed with him on the company’s safety efforts.

More than 700 OpenAI employees then signed a letter threatening to quit if the board did not agree to resign.

In the backdrop, in other words, there was a policy angle behind of corporate boardroom battles that was in itself a big tech stories of the year.

“This [was] accelerationism versus de-celerationism,” said Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute, during the event.

Washington and the FCC wake up to AI

And it’s not that Washington is closing its eyes to the potentially life-altering – literally – consequences of artificial intelligence.

In October, the Biden administration issued an executive order on AI safety includes measures aimed at both ensuring safety and spurring innovation, with directives for federal agencies to generate safety and AI identification standards as well as grants for researchers and small businesses looking to use the technology.

But it’s not clear which side legislators on Capitol Hill might take in the future.

One notable application of AI in telecom highlighted by FCC chief Jessica Rosenworcel is AI-driven spectrum sharing optimization. Rosenworcel said in a July hearing that AI-enabled radios could collaborate autonomously, enhancing spectrum use without a central authority, an advancement poised for implementation.

AI’s potential contribution to enhancing broadband mapping efforts was explored in a November House hearing. AI faced skepticism from experts who argued that in rural areas where data is scarce and of inferior quality, machine learning would struggle to identify potential inaccuracies. Initially, the FCC regarded AI as having strong potential for aiding in broadband mapping.

Also in November, the FCC voted to launch a formal inquiry on the potential impact of AI on robocalls and robotexts. The agency believes that illegal robocalls can be addressed through AI which can flag certain patterns that are deemed suspicious and analyze voice biometrics for synthesized voices.

But isn’t ChatGPT a form of artificial general intelligence?

As we’ve learned through an intensive focus on AI over the course of the year, somewhere still beyond passing the Turing test is the acclaimed concept of “artificial general intelligence.” That presumably means that it is a little bit smarter than ChatGPT-4.

Previously, OpenAI had defined AGI as “AI systems that are generally smarter than humans.” But apparently sometime recently, the company redefined this to mean “a highly autonomous system that outperforms humans at most economically valuable work.”

Some, including Rumman Chowdury, CEO of the tech accountability nonprofit Humane Intelligence, argue that framing AGI in economic terms, OpenAI recast its mission as building things to sell, a far cry from its original vision of using intelligent AI systems to benefit all.

AGI, as ChatGPT-4 told this reporter, “refers to a machine’s ability to understand, learn, and apply its intelligence to solve any problem, much like a human being. ChatGPT, while advanced, is limited to tasks within the scope of its training and programming. It excels in language-based tasks but does not possess the broad, adaptable intelligence that AGI implies.”

That sound like something that an AGI-capable machine would very much want the world to believe.

Additional reporting provided on this story by Reporter Jericho Casper.

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