Lawmakers Aren't Giving Sam Altman the Zuckerberg Treatment (Yet)

At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, the CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman received a warm welcome from lawmakers, many of whom expressed surprise at his main argument: that AI should be regulated, and fast. It was a far cry from the grueling ordeals that tech CEOs have previously faced on Capitol Hill. Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Shou Zi Chew have all endured antagonistic Senate hearings in recent years about the wide-ranging impacts of their platforms--Facebook, Twitter and TikTok, respectively--on American democracy and the lives of their users. "I think what's happening today in this hearing room is historic," said Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) during the Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing about oversight of AI. "I can't recall when we've had people representing large corporations or private sector entities come before us and plead with us to regulate them." But in calling for legal guardrails to govern the tech his company is building, Altman is not unlike the other Silicon Valley leaders who have testified before Congress in the past.