RM Warren Remarks at Committee Hearing on Artificial Intelligence

The floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing. Artificial intelligence has extraordinary potential and presents extraordinary risks. Americans across this country are deeply concerned about how artificial intelligence will affect their lives. Americans are also concerned about what looks like corruption in plain sight driving the Trump administration's AI policy. Influential tech giants are concentrating ownership over powerful technologies and attempting to rewrite the rules that govern them. A corrupt Trump administration basically is giving them whatever they want. The impact on American families is massive. First, AI companies are on a spending spree to build data centers. This is the infrastructure that supports AI, and families in areas surrounding these data centers are already paying a price. Residential electricity prices, which have risen more than 16 percent since Donald Trump took office, are expected to climb as much as 40 percent by 2030. Nearly one in three households is struggling to pay their utility bills. The Trump administration's response has been a weak request for voluntary commitments from big corporations, and that leaves families footing the bill. Second, AI companies are addicted to debt. Early in AI development, these companies financed their own investments, but now they are borrowing upwards of a trillion dollars to finance spending on data centers, chips, and other AI infrastructure. They borrow from private credit funds that in turn borrow from banks. This means that if AI tumbles, it will bring down many in private credit, and that in turn will risk bringing down giant banks. The possible failure of AI companies looms larger every day. AI companies that are unable to increase revenues and service their massive debt loads could trigger massive losses in the financial sector and another 2008-style crash. That in turn could wipe out huge amounts of value from Americans' retirement accounts. Third, Americans are worried about what will happen to their jobs in a world of rapidly improving AI capabilities. AI has already started reshaping the workforce. While we don't know what the long-term effects on unemployment will be, we cannot wait around to see how many jobs will be eliminated before we start to prepare for the coming upheaval. We have a decision to make. Either AI will profit a handful of the richest people, making them even richer, or the benefits of AI will be used for all Americans. If we continue to do nothing, the billionaires will suck up all the value from AI. But if we start now to tax AI and use that money to fund free education, apprenticeships, and encourage new job creation for the workforce, we can share the benefits of AI across our country. Before we hear from our witnesses, I want to raise one other issue. China is also working feverishly to develop AI, including AI weapons systems that can be turned against the United States. One company, NVIDIA, makes the chips that are powering AI's advances. In recent years, NVIDIA's valuation has ballooned to nearly $5 trillion. That makes NVIDIA the world's biggest company, and NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen Wang, a very powerful person. Mr. Wang wants to sell NVIDIA's chips to China, which will profit his own company and advance China's AI development. I invited NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen Wang, to testify at this hearing, and he refused to join us. I invited Mr. Wang because he and NVIDIA are lobbying hard to get a blank check from the Trump administration to allow the sale of advanced chips to China. Mr. Wang's efforts have alarmed senior military leaders here in the United States, who have warned that such technology could strengthen China's military and put our own national security at risk. No matter. In Trump's D.C., money talks, and President Trump appears to be giving policy handouts to the highest bidder. If it's not plain, old-fashioned bribery, it sure smells like it. Mr. Wang and NVIDIA have been active here in D.C. NVIDIA donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration. Mr. Wang made a big donation to Trump's favorite project, his golden-crusted ballroom. Mr. Wang wheeled his way into a seat on Air Force One on the President's summit with President Xi in China. Mr. Wang even managed to score a meeting with President Xi himself, along with President Trump, about NVIDIA's business interests. All that sucking up to the President has paid off big time for Mr. Wang. America had strong export controls that would have blocked NVIDIA from selling these chips to China, but the Trump administration is relaxing these rules. The Trump administration has also turned a blind eye, as massive numbers of these chips have been sold elsewhere, then somehow magically made it to China. The American people deserve to hear Mr. Wang answer hard questions from both sides about the role he has played in undermining our national security. AI holds tremendous promise, but Americans are rightly concerned that it could further rig our economy. Congress can no longer be a bystander as the risks from AI grow nearer and millions more American chips are sent to China. It is time for Congress to stand up so that the American people can share in the success of this technology and not just be left holding the bag for whatever goes wrong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.