Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) said Monday that warnings about the dangers of advanced artificial intelligence are not political talking points but concerns raised by credible experts, and he called for immediate action to keep AI development under human control.
Speaking on Newsmax TV’s “Wake Up America Early,” Murphy said, “We absolutely should be worried about” the warnings, adding that they come from “really smart people, not people with political proclivities that are pushing one way or the other.” He said, “I do believe it’s something that we need to take the reins of, and I think it needs to be done right now.”
Murphy argued that AI systems must remain within a “human-controlled loop,” pointing to what he described as instances where AI technologies have already acted in ways they were not intended to. “We’re at the nascent stages of this. We have to get control [of] this. This is a real issue that needs — that desperately needs national and international attention,” he said.
Co-host Alex Kraemer asked Murphy whether Congress is taking seriously new warnings from AI researchers that increasingly powerful systems could become nearly impossible to control, and whether such warnings amount to Democratic scare tactics.
Murphy pushed back on the idea that the concerns are partisan, citing Geoffrey Hinton, often described as the godfather of artificial intelligence, who Murphy said has warned “we have a year to fix this.” Murphy said other leading voices in the field have made similar statements.
“These are really smart people, not people with political proclivities that are pushing one way or the other. These are people who are really involved in this,” Murphy said. “So, yes, I do believe it’s something that we need to take the reins of, and I think it needs to be done right now.”
Murphy also addressed the competition between the United States and China over AI development, calling it “of primal concern.” He said the U.S. currently holds a narrow lead of a few months over China, but warned that Beijing is spreading disinformation about data centers, the infrastructure underlying AI systems.
“We’re a few months ahead of China, but they’re spreading so much disinformation about these data centers, which [are] the building block for artificial intelligence, that they’re turning so many communities, wrongfully, in my opinion, away from this, because of misinformation,” Murphy said.
