Seeking Bipartisanship, House Science Chair Also Wants More Tech Responsibility
House Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson hopes for a return to bipartisanship including on technology, and for more tech stakeholder responsibility in preventing the spread of false or unfair information. "We’re in competition with the rest of the world,"…
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not each other, she told C-SPAN. Legislation on tech has been "bipartisan," the Texas Democrat told The Communicators, online Friday. On election concerns and deepfakes, she said, "I hope we’ll see much of that [partisanship] begin to come to an end." The U.S. should "keep pace and hopefully sometimes will lead" against China on artificial intelligence, she said in an appearance to have been televised over weekend. America isn't devoting as much time and money in AI research as China is, she said. Education is needed, including for what she described as blue-collar professions. It's "not too soon" to train people about autonomous vehicles, Johnson said. "Autonomous vehicle travel is probably right here on the horizon." On the spread of misinformation on tech platforms, "we’ve got to be a little more aggressive in making sure there’s responsibility there," and industry is starting to show it's working on this, the congresswoman said. The likes of Facebook and Twitter should act if the president uses them for falsehoods, she recommended. "We ought to have a freedom of responsibility" and not just of speech, she said, in seeking more responsibility. "Many of these platforms are very aware that much of these materials are … unfair." The White House, Facebook, Twitter and the Internet Association didn't comment. Johnson isn't sure "how much privacy we can depend on." Everyone wants to keep things private, yet the majority use the "technologies that remove privacy," she said: "We cannot run away from" this challenge of "protecting the public." She'll "never give up," she said when asked whether privacy legislation could be adopted before next year's elections.