Back in May I did a dramatization of a key and highly painful Senate hearing. Now, we are back for a House committee meeting. It was entitled ‘Authoritarians and Algorithms: Why U.S. AI Must Lead’ and indeed a majority of talk was very much about that, with constant invocations of the glory of democratic AI and the need to win.

The majority of talk was this orchestrated rhetoric that assumes the conclusion that what matters is ‘democracy versus authoritarianism’ and whether we ‘win,’ often (but not always) translating that as market share without any actual mechanistic model of any of it.

However, there were also some very good signs, some excellent questions, signs that there is an awareness setting in. As far as Congressional discussions of real AGI issues go, this was in part one of them. That's unusual.

(And as always there were a few [...]

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Outline:

(01:29) Some Of The Best Stuff

(05:30) Welcome to the House

(08:22) Opening Statements

(12:24) Krishnamoorthi Keeps Going

(14:09) The Crowd Goes Wild

(14:13) Moolenaar

(15:04) Carson

(15:16) Lahood

(15:44) Dunn

(17:08) Johnson

(19:21) Torres

(22:25) Brown

(22:52) Nun

(24:43) Tokuda

(25:32) Moran

(26:33) Connor

(28:32) Humans Unemployable

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First published:
July 2nd, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2dwBxehFfAsdKtbuq/congress-asks-better-questions

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

The image shows a speaker at a podium wearing traditional Hawaiian attire, alongside text discussing artificial superintelligence risks and concerns about nation-state control over advanced AI systems. The quote raises questions about potential global challenges from independent AGI or ASI actors.

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“Congress Asks Better Questions” by Zvi

LessWrong (30+ Karma)