On Tuesday, Rep. Valerie Foushee, (D-NC 4th) and Rep. Deborah Ross, (D-NC 2nd) hosted a roundtable with senior administration officers from the Biden Administration and local industry leaders to discuss government use of artificial intelligence.
The event was hosted at North Carolina Central University in Durham, and featured a discussion about AI usage with technology entrepreneurs and faculty from NCCU, Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.
Other guests from Washington, D.C. included Arati Prabhakar, the chief advisor on science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Elizabeth Kelly, the director of the U.S. AI Safety Institute, National Institute for Standards and Technology.
Durham Mayor Leonardo Williams and NCCU Chancellor Johnson Akinleye also attended the event and both made remarks regarding responsible use of AI in education and governance.
“Let us seize the opportunity to step ahead of the conversations right at the center of our future, where AI empowers individuals into society, and fosters the full potential of humanity,” Akinleye said.
Foushee announced that she will be joining a bipartisan AI task force in U.S. Congress. She said the topic deserves more attention and that the districts she represents serve a critical role in advancing AI.
“It is critical for Congress to act now to ensure the U.S. can safely and responsibly remain at the forefront of the rapidly growing AI industry,” Foushee said.
Foushee also commended Biden’s October executive order on safe, secure and trustworthy AI. The order calls for transparency from AI developers with the government, establishes standards to help Americans avoid AI fraud and protects technological privacy.
In January, North Carolina became the fourth state education department to release a guidebook on the use of AI in public schools. The NCDPI guidebook encourages AI incorporation in curriculums and school districts to form their own rules about its usage.
