A high-ranking executive at Salesforce expresses confidence that the U.S. Congress will enact new legislation to regulate artificial intelligence in the near future. Paula Goldman, Salesforce’s Chief Ethical and Humane Use Officer, conveyed her optimism during an interview at the Mobile World Congress tech trade show in Barcelona. She notes a growing momentum toward concrete AI laws in the United States, emphasizing that federal legislation is on the horizon.
Goldman highlights the bipartisan nature of the AI regulation issue among U.S. lawmakers and points to individual states making efforts to formulate their own AI laws. She emphasizes the importance of U.S. lawmakers reaching a consensus on AI regulations and commends the EU AI Act and initiatives in the U.K., expressing the need for international frameworks to be interoperable.
Addressing the absence of federal legislation, Goldman warns of potential state-by-state regulations emerging, which she deems suboptimal. Despite this, she remains optimistic, citing bipartisan hearings in the Senate and identifying several bipartisan sub-issues related to AI. Goldman, who sits on the U.S. National AI Advisory Committee, emphasizes the importance of establishing guardrails around AI technology.
Goldman’s role at Salesforce involves developing product policies for the ethical use of technologies, particularly AI-powered tools like facial recognition. Salesforce introduced Einstein, a conversational AI bot designed for enterprise use cases, demonstrating the company’s stake in generative AI.
Several AI-related legislations are progressing through the U.S. Congress, including the REAL Political Advertisements Act, the National AI Commission Act, and the AI Labeling Act. Despite these efforts, there is currently no official regulation specifically addressing AI. Calls for government intervention in AI regulation have increased with the advancement of generative AI tools, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini. In October, President Joe Biden signed an executive order on AI to establish a coordinated, government-wide approach to the responsible development and implementation of AI technology.
