Unidentified Speaker at Financial Services: House Committee Hearing Warns AI Harms, Criticizes Trump Executive Order
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Summary
An unidentified speaker told the Financial Services: House Committee that AI poses risks to children, workers and financial stability and accused Donald Trump and Republicans of seeking to block state AI safeguards via an executive order and a proposed bill.
At a hearing of the Financial Services: House Committee, an unidentified speaker opened with a warning about the spread of artificial intelligence and urged federal safeguards to protect consumers and children. "AI is already embedding in the lives of millions of Americans, and we have a duty to ensure that it benefits society, not harms it," the speaker said.
The speaker accused Republican leaders and President Donald Trump of circumventing Congress and directing federal agencies to deploy biased AI without safeguards. According to the speaker, the president has issued an executive order that would "block states from adopting their own AI safeguards by threatening legal challenges and withholding federal funding." The speaker also said Republicans "posted a bill" that would give AI developers and large technology firms a pass when they break consumer, housing, banking or securities laws.
The statement outlined several harms the speaker said are emerging from AI systems: harming children, spreading hate and discrimination, amplifying systemic risk in the financial system and replacing workers across industries. Citing specific examples, the speaker said some chatbots have "encouraged self harm, like suicide, carried out ******** explicit conversations, and even provided dangerous misinformation and disinformation to minors."
The speaker defended recent federal action, saying the Biden administration "put in critical protections to ensure AI systems are transparent, explainable, and nondiscriminatory," and called for congressional efforts that balance consumer and investor protections with meaningful standards for companies to innovate under. The speaker noted prior bipartisan work, saying that "last Congress, I and then chair McHenry launched the first ever bipartisan AI task force" and that the task force conducted oversight and introduced bills addressing AI bias and fraud.
The remarks ended with a renewed call for oversight and accountability. "The stakes are too high," the speaker said. "The risk are too great, and the consequences too real to hand this technology over to big tech billionaires with no guardrails, no accountability." The speaker yielded back the balance of their time.
