First Lady Melania Trump this week urged elementary school students in North Carolina to create “the next great robot” — and bring it directly to the White House.
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence is already reshaping the way people work and seek out information.
Yet the idea of robots moving through people’s homes has unsettled some lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
“I mean, I’ve got kids. I don’t want my kids around robots,” Representative Ilhan Omar told the Daily Mail.
“That feels a little creepy.”
Representative Jamie Raskin cautioned that developing such machines could introduce “massive, pervasive, new, systemic risks,” including the prospect that increasingly autonomous AI systems could become hard for humans to control.
Other lawmakers, including Representative Rich of Georgia, appeared more open to welcoming robots into their homes.
“You remember I, Robot, the Will Smith movie, right? Where they start doing everything around the house. People worry about those things turning on you someday. Who knows how that’s gonna work, but I’m not too worried about it. I think it’ll be a gradual process of people who can afford it, will have it.”
First Lady Melania Trump said it is “very important” for the US to “lead” on AI while visiting elementary school students in North Carolina on Tuesday, where she encouraged them to build robots.
Asked how she would feel about robots in her home, Representative Ilhan Omar said: “I mean, I’ve got kids. I don’t want my kids around robots. That feels a little creepy.”
‘You remember I, Robot, the Will Smith movie, right? Where they start doing everything around the house. People worry about those things turning on you someday. Who knows how that’s gonna work, but I’m not too worried about it’ McCormick said on robots
Washington is piling pressure on the booming AI industry, with lawmakers proposing sweeping new rules that could force the most powerful AI companies to undergo independent safety checks, report dangerous incidents to the government and maintain a ‘kill switch’ capable of shutting down advanced systems in an emergency.
The AI giants are increasingly asking Washington for a single national rulebook, with mandatory safety testing and checks.
Representative Ro Khanna, who serves on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he wants an entirely new federal agency to oversee artificial intelligence.
Khanna said a new agency could police AI the way federal regulators already oversee drugs, electricity and nuclear power.
He also warned about AI systems that act on their own, pointing to what engineers call a ‘P(doom)’ score – their own odds that the technology ends in catastrophe.
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‘The engineers go around with this thing called a P(doom) number,’ he said. ‘Probability of doom is 10%, 12%, 5%.’
Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington, called Trump’s opposition to additional AI regulation ‘destructive.’
Representative Ro Khanna, who serves on the Oversight and Government Reform committee, said he wants an entirely new federal agency to oversee artificial intelligence
But Khanna’s fellow ally Representative Thomas Massie argued that Washington should be wary of rushing into regulation
‘I don’t think Donald Trump can save us from anything.’ Raskin argued that while existing laws already apply to AI, technological advances may require lawmakers to revisit those laws
She also criticized Trump’s relationships with major technology executives and said she does not believe the president’s opposition would stop demands for regulation.
Representative Thomas Massie warned Washington against rushing in, and said the loudest voices for regulation may have the most to gain.
Big tech companies, he argued, can absorb the cost of complex rules. Their smaller rivals can’t.
McCormick made the case for AI around competition from China.
‘I think if we start pumping the brakes with us, China’s gonna zoom right past us.’
Congressman Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee is content to leave it to the president. ‘Yeah, he understands it. I trust him … It’s just the next president I worry about.’
But Democrats aren’t willing to wait, with Raskin arguing that Congress should rewrite rules before machines outrun human ability to control them.
Senator Richard Blumenthal said Trump’s dismissal of AI risk as a ‘hoax’ won’t survive contact with reality.
‘I think he’s gonna have to see that there is a freight train coming down the track.’
Omar wasn’t so sure : ‘We have to save ourselves.’
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