Sen. Jerry Moran on AI: "I’d love to see committees do their work"

Who?Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS)Ask a Pol asked:“Some of your colleague have called for a more sweeping, catch-all AI bill — is it better, from your standpoint, to do this committee by committee and small? Or?”Key Moran “Well, I’d love to see committees do their work. And there’s wide jurisdiction here, with lots of consequences. And I think it’s a broad enough issue that if every committee did their own work and produced a good product, it’d be a great outcome,” Moran tells Ask a Pol. “Well, I always worry that a talk of a big bill means some gang of ten or something, and we bypass a committee process and we end up in a kind of a position that we’re in now working on the border.”Caught our ear  “Well, I always worry that the talk of a big bill means some gang of 10 or something and we bypass the committee process and we end up in the kind of position that we’re in now working on the border,” Moran says. LISTEN: Laslo & MoranBelow find a rough transcript of Ask a Pol’s exclusive interview with Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), slightly edited for clarity.TRANSCRIPT: Sen. Jerry MoranSeems Laslo snuck up on the senator… Jerry Moran: “Oh, hey. Oh, hello.”Matt Laslo: “I was just curious, did you have any takeaways from the AI forums and briefings last year?”JM: “Well, I have nothing that’s reportable other than there’s a lot of challenges here, and we need to get it right. Serious consequences, and we’ve introduced legislation requiring — this as a [Sen. Mark] Warner-Moran thing — requiring utilizing the NIST standards government-wide but then encouraging them among the private sector.”ML: “Some of your colleague have called for a more sweeping, catch-all AI bill — is it better, from your standpoint, to do this committee by committee and small? Or?”JM: “Well, I’d love to see committees do their work. And there’s wide jurisdiction here, with lots of consequences. And I think it’s a broad enough issue that if every committee did their own work and produced a good product, it’d be a great outcome.”ML: “Yeah? What are your thoughts on a big AI bill? Or even there’s talk of a commission that some members have proposed?” JM: “Well, I always worry that the talk of a big bill means some gang of 10 or something and we bypass the committee process and we end up in the kind of position that we’re in now working on the border.”ML: “Yeah? And Silicon Valley ends up writing it?” JM: “And everything else.”ML: “Yep. Appreciate ya.”JM: “Yes, sir.”Matt Laslo’s a veteran congressional correspondent, new media prof. & founder of Ask a Pol — a new, people-powered press corps.Ask a Pol — asking your lawmakers your questions at your US Capitol. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.askapoluaps.com/subscribe