Congressman calls for a federal Department of AI to prevent Skynet

A U.S. congressman has begun advocating for a federal department to regulate the use of artificial intelligence, postulating a dystopian future where AIs will make key decisions and autonomous weapons roam America. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) authored an opinion piece in The New York Times on Monday, arguing that AI has emerged as a powerful tool that can be used to benefit humanity -- or deceive it, and worse. In fact, the example he cited, reproduced above, wasn't written by Lieu, but by ChatGPT, the AI chatbot developed by OpenAI. Lieu, who earned a B.S. degree in Computer Science from Stanford, noted that AI is now present in everything from smart speakers to Google Maps. But where AI fails, people can be hurt: The editorial points out that a driver blamed Tesla's self-driving mode for an eight-car pileup on the San Francisco Bay Bridge.