House Subcommittee Agrees: AI Crimes Lack Regulation

​“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.”
- Buckminster Fuller

Last week the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance held a hearing on AI and crime and something remarkable happened: Everyone agreed:

1. The administration’s desired moratorium on state AI regulation is a bad idea, and
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2. Existing criminal statutes everywhere need to be retrofitted to include AI-based offenses.

As for the first area of agreement, there was a collective sense that the country dodged a bullet last week when the Senate removed the moratorium from the budget bill and the House declined to reinstate it. Regarding the second issue, the consensus was clear: Buckle up. We have work to do.

Perhaps getting to work should start with persuading Members of Congress to show up at AI hearings. Other than the Chair and Ranking Member, only three of ten regular members were present. Those who did attend, however, heard from witnesses who, in combined testimony that ran 77 pages, struck similar chords:

1. Criminals can use AI impersonation to do things we’ve scarcely imagined.
   
   
2. AI is removing the technical barriers to crime. In the hands of industrious criminals, said witness Zara Perumal of Overwatch Data, “AI agents can learn by doing,” meaning the criminals themselves no longer have to be technical experts. “AI is removing human bottlenecks. It’s not just enhancing traditional fraud – it’s creating entirely new categories of criminal threat,” agreed Ari Redbord of TRM Labs. Just imagine, as one of the witnesses portended, “child abuse at scale.”
   
   
3. Law and policy are late to the party. For example, “Artificial Intelligence” isn’t even a category on the drop-down menu of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Overall, a handful of states have passed a few random measures, while hundreds of initiatives either failed or remain pending. As for the federal government, forget it. The administration’s recent moratorium attempt proved that the attitude du jour is recklessly laissez-faire. Which is exactly why subcommittee chair Andy Biggs (R-AZ) needed to call this hearing and promisingly referred to it as the first of many.
   
   
4. When it comes to fighting AI-powered crime, the best offense is a good defense. Given that the proverbial cats and genies are already out of their respective bags and bottles, it’s time to “shift the technical advantage to the defenders,” said Perumal.

Oregon and California, for example, intend to repurpose existing laws to include AI abuses. Some from-scratch legislation is also emerging, like Texas’ Responsible AI Governance Act and Tennessee’s ELVIS Act.

While most of the discussion centered on how criminals can misuse AI, we should not forget how it may be misused by our own government, which has a voracious appetite for our purchased data. AI is the critical ingredient to turn all that raw personal data into a working surveillance state.

The ACLU’s Cody Venzke reminded everyone not to overlook the Swiss Army Knife of our democracy – the Bill of Rights, especially the First and Fourth Amendments. Such protections, Venzke said, do not lose their power “simply because a new tool such as artificial intelligence was used.” They are both our sword and shield against criminals and government surveillance abuse, especially in the age of AI.

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