LIFE LESSONS — OK, shutdown averted (for now), which means Congress can now get back to legislating on everybody’s favorite cyber-related two-letter term. But before you can effectively make laws on artificial intelligence, you should probably learn how it works, right? That’s at least Rep. Eric Swalwell’s (D-Calif.) strategy, telling MC he’s been taking AI training with computer scientists and other tech experts to fully understand its challenges and benefits. And he suggests all his co-workers do the same. “I would recommend all my colleagues do [training] before you legislate on AI,” said Swalwell, the ranking member of House Homeland Security’s cyber subcommittee “You should really understand it, not just theoretically but also in practical application.” — So hot right now: AI is the talk of the town in Washington and beyond, with state legislators introducing 191 AI-related bills so far this year — including 14 that became law, according to the BSA. On the Hill this year, AI has crept into dozens of bills and Congressional hearings touching on ransomware, election security, espionage, and even the National Defense Authorization Act. Even the White House is acting on securing AI risks in cybersecurity and insider threats through a mid-September executive order, which was shortly followed by the Senate’s first-ever AI summit with some of the tech industry’s biggest names. — A force for good (and evil): A piqued curiosity isn’t enough though, with experts constantly tying its risks to its rewards — especially when it comes to cyber. AI has made it easier for cyber gangs to develop and deploy malicious code, disinformation campaigns and phishing tactics, but at the same time, the tech can be used to improve cyber defenses by helping to identify and respond to attacks more quickly. “It's allowed us as a collective country trying to defend against cyberattacks to better see the attacks sooner, and isolate and eliminate them,” Swalwell pointed out. — Start them young: Those lessons shouldn’t just be for your average hardened lawmaker, either. When it comes to the education front, he emphasized the importance of ensuring that all students have access to AI education, warning that those left out will be at a disadvantage in the future. “I'm a parent of three little kids and I think about how we have to get AI right in the classroom,” Swalwell said. “We can’t be a two-tiered education system in America where classrooms with resources teach kids how to use AI for their future careers, and then have classrooms without those resources.” “We already know AI will profoundly change the workforce — but we can’t allow it to change the workforce because we don’t have enough students trained in it,” he added. — Egos at the door: In terms of how he’s personally learning about the new tech, he says he’s been asking computer scientists to share their screens while working with him on his go-to system: OpenAI. Swalwell recommends that policymakers start by learning about AI through accessible web-based systems. "And don't bring in some ivory tower think tank-er,” Swalwell tells MC. “Start at your keyboard.” A CYBER LEGACY — Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who died late last week, leaves a long history of legislation she helped pass during her three decades in the Senate — including work on a major piece of cyber legislation, as Maggie writes in. Feinstein was the main Democratic sponsor of the 2015 Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which made it easier for organizations to voluntarily share cyber threats with the federal government, while also limiting the government’s access to personal information swept up in the cyber threat data. This was one of the first major pieces of cyber legislation signed into law. “We took every step we could to satisfy privacy concerns,” Feinstein said in a statement at the time of the Senate’s passage of the measure. “I believe this is a very good bill that reflects consensus on a very complicated issue.” — Secure tech: Beyond the 2015 law, Feinstein also worked with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to push through the Foreign Investment Modernization Review Act in 2018. The law expanded the authorities of the Committee on Foreign Investment of the United States to cover a greater number of transactions with foreign companies, with the aim of stopping foreign governments from acquiring U.S. technologies. — Vroom, vroom: The senator also took a stand to protect U.S. consumers from emerging technologies. Feinstein was among a group of Democratic senators in 2018 that blocked passage of the AV START Act, a key piece of legislation that would have created a federal regulatory framework for the testing and rollout of self-driving cars. In a 2018 letter sent to the leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee, Feinstein and four other Democratic senators expressed a variety of concerns about the proposed bill, including that it did not go far enough to address potential cyber risks of internet-connected vehicles. “We believe the bill must also lead to the development of cybersecurity safeguards, and include measures to protect consumer privacy, which are clearly foreseeable challenges,” the senators wrote. — Future impact: Feinstein was a key Democratic vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Her death leaves a Democratic opening on the panel, which has jurisdiction over issues including surveillance concerns.
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