GETTING UP TO SPEED: As Washington races to get its arms around all the various considerations of formulating federal AI regulations, more than two dozen policy analysts, lawyers and congressional aides headed to Silicon Valley this week for a bootcamp on the technology. — The event, hosted by Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI, offered a “crash course on AI’s benefits and risks for information-starved staffers staring down the possibility of legislating a fast-moving technology in the middle of a gold rush,” per The Washington Post’s Nitasha Tiku. — “Hundreds of Capitol Hill denizens applied for the camp’s 28 slots, a 40 percent increase from 2022. Attendees included aides for Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), as well as policy analysts and lawyers for House and Senate committees on commerce, foreign affairs, strategic trade with China and more.” — The curriculum, which has shifted from a cybersecurity focus to AI over the years, “covered AI’s potential to reshape education and health care, a primer on deepfakes, as well as a crisis simulation where participants had to use AI to respond to a national security threat in Taiwan.” One of the institute’s leaders insisted that the event was not meant to advocate for a particular policy point of view. — “But for an academic event, the camp was also inextricably tied to industry.” Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li, who spoke at the boot camp, “has done stints at Google Cloud and as a Twitter board member. Google’s AI ambassador, James Manyika, spoke at a fireside chat. Executives from Meta and Anthropic spoke to the audience Wednesday afternoon for the camp’s final session, discussing the role industry can play in shaping AI policy. HAI’s donors include LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, a Democratic megadonor whose start-up, Inflection AI, released a personalized chatbot in May.” — “The boot camp is one of many behind-the-scenes efforts to educate Congress since ChatGPT launched in November. Chastened by years of inaction on social media, regulators are trying to get up to speed on generative AI.” STOP US IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE: “After a freight train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, in February, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg secured what seemed like a significant victory. Following years of resistance, the nation’s largest freight railroads agreed to participate in a federal safety program that allows employees to confidentially report safety issues,” The New York Times’ Mark Walker writes. — “But five months after that commitment, none of the railroads have formally joined the program. Though they say they still intend to participate, the companies have raised concerns about the initiative, saying it is flawed and needs to be overhauled, according to government and industry officials.” — “The railroads’ hesitation raises questions about whether a key step to improve rail safety that Mr. Buttigieg hailed in the wake of the East Palestine derailment will come to pass. And it illustrates the steep challenge looming over federal officials and lawmakers as they push for safety changes after the Ohio accident, sometimes against the wishes of the freight rail industry. In Congress, a rail safety bill with bipartisan support faces an uncertain fate.” — One key dispute within a working group at the Federal Railroad Administration reportedly stems from freight railroads’ insistence that they retain the ability to discipline employee whistleblowers if they believe that misconduct has occurred — potentially undermining the reporting program’s focus on anonymity. ANNALS OF CAMPAIGN FINANCE: The FEC has voted unanimously to slap Ohio gun manufacturer Ohio Ordnance Works with a $19,000 fine for a six-figure donation it made to the Club for Growth’s super PAC last year, despite restrictions on political contributions by government contractors, Raw Story’s Mark Alesia reports. — “The company admitted making money from the U.S. government as a contractor and, later, making a $100,000 donation to a right-wing super PAC,” according to a settlement made public by the FEC this week. Federal election law bars “contributions to political committees by any person who enters into a contract with the United States or its departments … if payment on such contract is to be made in whole or in part from funds appropriated by Congress.” — “A complaint to the FEC said Ohio Ordnance Works made the donation in 2022 to the Club for Growth Action, which lists as a priority ‘defeating big-government Democrats in red seats and swing districts and replacing them with pro-growth conservatives. Club for Growth Action refunded the $100,000 contribution in May of this year, and the FEC did not penalize the super PAC.” — “Ohio Ordnance Works had argued that while it did have a ‘master contract’ with the Defense Logistics Agency, an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense, it wasn’t a federal contractor because there were no active purchase orders when it made the donation to Club for Growth Action. But the FEC’s legal office disagreed, and the agency’s six commissioners — three Republicans, three Democrats — unanimously voted to approve the $19,000 fine.”
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