GOP Rep. Murphy: AI Warnings Aren't Political, Need to Act, China Is Lying About Data Centers

On Monday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “Wake Up America Early,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) said that “We absolutely should be worried about” AI warnings, there are warnings from “really smart people, not people with political proclivities that are pushing one way or the other.” And “I do believe it’s something that we need to take the reins of, and I think it needs to be done right now.”

Murphy said, “This has to be a human-controlled loop. And we’ve seen a couple instances already where these type of artificial intelligence technologies have done things that they were not intended to do. And so, we’re at the nascent stages of this. We have to get control [of] this. This is a real issue that needs — that desperately needs national and international attention.”

Co-host Alex Kraemer then asked, “And we are hearing new warnings from AI researchers that increasingly powerful systems could become almost, just completely impossible to control. Do you really think that those warnings that we’re now hearing are being taken very seriously in Congress at this point? And then, the second follow-up to that is, there’s a lot saying that this is scare tactics from the Democrats, that we shouldn’t be this worried about it. I would love your thoughts on that.”

Murphy responded, “We absolutely should be worried about that, let me just say that, plain and simple. The leaders in this field, Geoffrey Hinton, who’s kind of considered the godfather of artificial intelligence, said, basically, we have a year to fix this. And so many of the other leaders have said this. These are really smart people, not people with political proclivities that are pushing one way or the other. These are people who are really involved in this. So, I think we absolutely need to be, as any smart, intelligent, I think human needs to be. Now, where this goes and how we do this really is of imminent concern. So, yes, I do believe it’s something that we need to take the reins of, and I think it needs to be done right now.”

Murphy added that beating China in the AI race is “of primal concern,” and “We’re a few months ahead of China, but they’re spreading so much disinformation about these data centers, which [are] the building block for artificial intelligence, that they’re turning so many communities, wrongfully, in my opinion, away from this, because of misinformation.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett