Elon Musk meets with Charles Schumer to discuss AI, economy

Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla and social media platform Twitter, discussed artificial intelligence issues with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday.

“We talked about the future,” Musk told reporters after exiting the meeting that lasted about an hour. “We talked about AI and the economy.”

Schumer’s office confirmed the meeting.

Earlier this month, Schumer said he had launched an effort to establish rules on artificial intelligence to address national security and education concerns, as use of programs like ChatGPT becomes widespread.

Schumer said he had drafted and circulated a “framework that outlines a new regulatory regime that would prevent potentially catastrophic damage to our country while simultaneously making sure the US advances and leads in this transformative technology.”

In March, Musk and a group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives called for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than OpenAI’s newly launched GPT-4, in an open letter citing potential risks to society.

“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” said the letter issued by the Future of Life Institute.

There is a growing push in Washington for AI regulations. Senate Intelligence Committee chair Mark Warner sent major AI CEOs a letter Wednesday asking them to take steps to address concerns.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters Wednesday the Biden administration is working “as aggressively as possible to figure out our approach” to AI.

“The challenge is you don’t want to stifle innovation in a brand new area with massive potential,” Raimondo said. “The risks related to misinformation and deep fakes etcetera are massive.”

In January, Musk met two top White House officials in Washington to discuss how Tesla and the administration of President Joe Biden could work together to advance electric vehicle production. He also visited with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in a meeting earlier this year.

Separately, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met with Musk on Wednesday in Washington to call for investment in his country, news agency Yonhap reported, citing a presidential aide.

The two met at Musk’s request as Yoon is in the US for a six-day state visit, Yonhap said.

Yoon touted South Korea as an ideal country for Tesla to build a gigafactory, citing the country’s cutting edge industrial robots and high-skilled workers, the report said.

He also offered to provide support including tax benefits to attract the EV maker’s manufacturing plant.

Musk told Yoon that South Korea remains as one of the top candidates for Tesla’s Gigafactories, and he would have an opportunity to visit the Asian country, according to Yonhap.