What Kamala Harris means for AI regulation
The vice-president has acknowledged the existential risks of AI and called for legislation to tackle those risks
After a dramatic weekend, it now looks like Kamala Harris may be the Democratic nominee for president. For advocates of AI regulation, that’s probably a good thing.
As vice-president, Harris has been extremely vocal about the need for the government to tackle the potential risks from artificial intelligence. And she takes those risks seriously: in a November 2023 speech, she acknowledged that AI might “endanger the very existence of humanity”, citing “AI-formulated bioweapons” and “AI-enabled cyberattacks” as particular concerns.
In that speech, Harris said voluntary commitments on AI safety weren’t enough. “As history has shown, in the absence of regulation and strong government oversight, some technology companies choose to prioritise profit over the wellbeing of their customers, the safety of our communities, and the stability of our democracies,” she said, arguing that the US needs “legislation that strengthens AI safety without stifling innovation”.
In a statement this May, she also told the CEOs of AI companies that they have an “ethical, moral, and legal responsibility to ensure the safety and security of their products”.
Along with tackling potential catastrophic risks, Harris has also shown an interest in broadening the definition of “AI safety” to include tackling AI’s present-day harms. “To define AI safety,” she said, “we must consider and address the full spectrum of AI risk — threats to humanity as a whole, as well as threats to individuals, communities, to our institutions, and to our most vulnerable populations.”
She has also repeatedly rejected the idea that protecting the public from AI means stifling innovation, describing that as a “false choice”.
Despite her tough-on-tech positions, though, Harris has close ties to the industry: perhaps unsurprising, given her previous jobs as district attorney of San Francisco, attorney general of California, and senator for California. Sheryl Sandberg, Jony Ive and Marc Benioff have donated to previous Harris campaigns, and Harris was spotted at Sean Parker’s wedding. Laurene Powell Jobs, meanwhile, once hosted a fundraiser for Harris.
Furthermore, Harris’s brother-in-law is Uber’s chief legal officer, while former Harris campaign chief Rebecca Prozan is now a Google lobbyist (where she is director of “West Region Government Affairs and Public Policy”).
Those ties do not seem to have affected Harris’s approach to AI regulation, however. And that approach is popular with voters: a large majority of both Democrats and Republicans want the US to take a “careful controlled approach” to AI.