‘AI Is A Loaded Gun’: Garcia Sounds The Alarm On Trump Admin ‘Weaponizing’ AI For ‘Lawless’ Agenda

2 days ago

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL) slammed the Trump administration’s use of artificial intelligence.

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00:00The gentleman from Illinois is now recognized for five minutes.

00:03Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to all the witnesses here today, to Commissioner Slaughter for also

00:10being here to observe the proceedings.

00:12As usual, so far in this hearing, it looks like my colleagues, the Republican side of

00:18this panel, is here to champion corporate interests over workers and consumers.

00:25Today, their obedience is making them argue against even reasonable regulation of the

00:31AI industry.

00:33While not surprising, it's still incredible to see them making these claims with a straight

00:39face given everything that's going on.

00:42Let's start with the fact that the Trump administration and its billionaire overlord, Elon Musk, are

00:48weaponizing AI to carry out their lawless and unpopular agenda.

00:54They're using AI to arbitrarily surveil students, expand the power of DHS and ICE, and gut federal

01:01agencies.

01:03In the hands of billionaires and authoritarians like Musk and Trump, AI is a loaded gun waiting

01:11to be used on immigrants, workers, and consumers.

01:15This is exactly why it's absurd to oppose common sense regulation of the AI industry.

01:21Let's talk about what that common sense could be.

01:24It's also absurd because we know what happens when we don't enforce antitrust and consumer

01:30protection laws against technology companies.

01:33As my colleagues have pointed out, the failure to apply these laws to big tech companies

01:39at the dawn of the social media age has led to the dominance of these companies, which

01:46has routinely abused workers, exploited consumers, and deployed their technology to expand surveillance

01:54and trample on privacy rights.

01:57That is the consequence of inaction.

02:00We must learn from our mistakes, and we must prioritize workers and consumers over corporate

02:09profits.

02:10So, let's talk about what that looks like.

02:13Commissioner Bedoya, thank you for being here today.

02:16I stand in solidarity with you as you face Donald Trump's illegal efforts to fire you

02:23and Commissioner Slaughter.

02:24Can you talk about the competition between AI, if it exists, and workers, and the implications

02:32for labor rights?

02:36I was down in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a couple months ago, and there was a case from Pascagoula,

02:45which is right near there, of a call center worker who had a high school diploma, a single

02:51mom, and she had been able to take this job and find the middle class.

02:59She bought a house, nice neighborhood, great schools.

03:03And what was starting to happen is that there was this AI transcript that was being generated

03:08of her calls, but it was wrong.

03:10You know, people on the Gulf, you know, my wife's from Louisiana, have a different cadence,

03:14different accent slightly, and the AI-generated transcript was failing.

03:19And she would get docked for those errors.

03:23And one of the things she openly wondered was, because there was also other software

03:27operating that the workers thought was going to be used to replace them, she openly wondered,

03:31am I training my replacement?

03:34So these are the kinds of folks who may be hurt by these efforts to scan, track, surveil,

03:40swallow up all this data about people working really important jobs that might be used to

03:46replace them.

03:48Thank you for sharing that.

03:50And from, based on your work at the Federal Trade Commission, what kinds of protections

03:56do you think are needed for workers if Congress were to act?

04:03So I've already mentioned the need for a workplace privacy law.

04:08The other thing we urgently need, in my personal view, is some kind of guardrails against automated

04:14management.

04:15Increasingly, you're seeing allegations that people are getting fired automatically on

04:21the job because of the way they were tracked.

04:24Maybe it thought that they were just loafing around when they were actually going to the

04:27bathroom, when they were actually repairing the machinery on the warehouse floor.

04:31You also see instances where people are increasingly having their emotions analyzed on the job.

04:36This is another call center example.

04:38There was an AI that thought, that set off this emotion distress alarm any time the caller

04:43at the end of the line started laughing.

04:45And so you have technology that doesn't work as well as people think it does, being used

04:50to fire people, dock their pay.

04:53And there need to be guardrails around that kind of conduct.

04:56Labor unions have often succeeded in putting those protections in place, but I think everyone

05:00needs those kinds of protections, not just folks who are lucky enough to be in a union.

05:05And my time is exhausted, Mr. Chairman.

05:08Before I turn it back, I seek unanimous consent to submit an article entitled, thank you,

05:15Open AI Peels Back Chat GBT Safeguards Around Image Creation.

05:21Without objection.

‘AI Is A Loaded Gun’: Garcia Sounds The Alarm On Trump Admin ‘Weaponizing’ AI For ‘Lawless’ Agenda

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