During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) questioned Alvaro Bedoya, the Former Commissioner of U.S. Federal Trade Commission, about artificial intelligence impacting working people.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00The gentleman's time has expired and now recognized.
00:03Mr. Chairman, I have the unanimous consent request.
00:06The gentleman is recognized.
00:08Mr. Chairman, I'd like to enter into the record an article, AI Watch Global Regulatory Tracker,
00:15that details how many more regulations than the U.S. does on AI development and deployment.
00:23Without objection, the gentleman from Vermont is now recognized for five minutes.
00:27Thank you, Mr. Chair.
00:29Commissioner Bedoya, thank you so much for being here.
00:32Commissioner Slaughter, it's really nice to see you.
00:35Commissioner Bedoya, as commissioner at the FTC, I think your experience on competition,
00:41artificial intelligence, and how these things affect everyday people is extremely important
00:46to this discussion.
00:48We all understand that we're in the early days of what may be a massively transformational
00:55technological moment.
00:58It's plausible that this may be like the emergence of the internet, the mobile phone,
01:03or really even electricity.
01:06But it's so important that we don't lose sight of the central point here, which is, how does
01:12this technology help or hurt working people?
01:15That's what I'm focused on.
01:18Commissioner Bedoya, you spent a great deal of time as FTC commissioner outside of D.C.,
01:24traveling around the country, hearing from people.
01:27And I want to know, have you heard a sense of concern from people, working people, about
01:32how AI is impacting their lives?
01:36Sure.
01:37So, I confess, a lot of my roundtables are focused on groceries, pharmacy, that kind
01:45of thing.
01:46Everyday costs.
01:47What's that?
01:48Everyday costs.
01:49Everyday costs, that's right.
01:50I will say a couple things on this.
01:53A lot of people look at what happened around the actors and writer strikes, and they say,
01:59oh, that's just a Hollywood thing.
02:01But entry-level actors and entry-level writers don't make that much money.
02:05And you had situations where people were quite worried, and with good reason, that the cost
02:13of selling your first script was going to be to submit all your work to be fed into
02:18one of these AIs, so that there would be no need to hire you in the future.
02:23I also do think there have been a lot of concerns, I think my colleague Commissioner Slaughter
02:27has done a roundtable on this, on the use of price-fixing algorithms in rental housing
02:32markets.
02:33That's where I'm going.
02:34Yes.
02:35And that's a real concern.
02:36That's exactly where I'm going.
02:38Let's jump to that, because this is a deep concern of mine.
02:44Could you tell us in real terms, because you had talked about earlier that it's not
02:48just the algorithm itself in terms of real page, but there seems to be instances that
02:54we can look to, there seems to be evidence that there is actually some collusion happening
02:59here.
03:00And that's something that I'm deeply concerned about, and we all should.
03:04There is a crisis of housing in this country, and renters are over a barrel right now.
03:09They don't have a lot of options.
03:11So can you talk a little bit about how this is impacting regular people just in terms
03:16of trying to afford their rental housing?
03:18Sure.
03:19So the allegations in this space are that these algorithms don't just offer the exact
03:27right amount of an increase so that a renter swallows the increase rather than tries to
03:32find a different place.
03:34There's allegations of actual overt in the real page lawsuit, calling between landlords
03:39to coordinate.
03:40But there's also allegedly information sharing, creating a pool of data that these landlords
03:45can draw on to increase rent without saying, while being able to say, oh, we never called
03:51each other.
03:52One really interesting point here is sometimes antitrust harms, because they're a little
03:55complex, can get a little technical.
03:57I'll just point out that one of the corporate landlords in the real page suit is a company
04:01called Graystar.
04:02FTC is also simultaneously suing Graystar for packing people's rent checks with these
04:07fake hidden fees, like, oh, you know, you want no cockroaches in your apartment?
04:12You got to pay extra for that.
04:13And so oftentimes...
04:14Pay extra for no cockroaches, huh?
04:15Precisely.
04:16And so you see, you know, anti-competitive conduct arm in arm with conduct that hurts
04:21consumers in my view pretty obviously.
04:24So I do think it's important in this hearing as we talk about the importance of not stifling
04:28innovation to, at the same time, be able to hold both truths.
04:35We can be careful in our regulations.
04:38We can be careful in the guardrails that we're putting on, but I don't think anyone here,
04:42at least I hope not, that anyone on the antitrust committee would be supportive of landlords
04:48colluding to raise the price of rent.
04:52And I know in some instances we've seen that this AI dynamic pricing scheme has led to
05:00increases of over $800 over the course of a year of not just these hidden fees that
05:06we're talking about, but the prices that they're paying for rent itself.
05:10And of course, you've talked about how essential workers are being replaced in key industries,
05:16where we see patients illegally being denied care because of an AI-based recommendation,
05:22where artists are being robbed of their work.
05:25And I just have to say, we have got to remember the importance of following a law when it
05:36comes to having FTC commissioners.
05:38And I think it's outrageous that you and Commissioner Slaughter were illegally removed from your
05:44positions.
05:45We need you on the watch to take care of my renters back home in Vermont who were being
05:51screwed over.