00:00Mr. President, I happen to be the last person to sit in the commander's seat of Space Shuttle
00:10Endeavor.
00:12Hard to describe how it feels to be strapped to four and a half million pounds of fuel
00:20waiting for three main engines and two solid rocket boosters to ignite underneath you.
00:26It gives you clarity.
00:29Because flying that thing, it's not one dangerous moment.
00:35It's continuous.
00:38There's always a catastrophic failure lurking around every corner.
00:44And when things go sideways on you and you're troubleshooting a cooling issue while managing
00:51an electrical failure while mission control is telling you something that contradicts
00:57your instruments, it requires that you are keenly aware of what is happening.
01:06You figure out how to separate the signal from the noise.
01:12So you pay attention to the data and you do your very best to understand what is happening
01:20with a very complicated machine.
01:25You ignore the noise.
01:27You evaluate the numbers and you work the problem.
01:30And you listen when the alarms are telling you something isn't right.
01:41These last few weeks, as engineers, researchers, and CEOs have all been shouting about AI becoming
01:50a threat to humanity's very survival.
01:55I feel like I'm back in that seat with the master alarm blaring and systems failing.
02:04And nobody is steering the ship.
02:08While the people inside the industry discuss catastrophic damage and the chance that AI, and I quote,
02:18will kill us all by the end of the decade, the White House is actively lobbying against regulation.
02:29Our president calls Americans' fears a, quote, hoax and a sick conspiracy.
02:41He says that we don't need new guardrails.
02:44And Speaker Johnson says that Congress isn't qualified to make them.
02:51Instead, he wants a summit, someday.
02:54But in the meantime, we'll revisit it after a seven-week recess.
03:01When the master alarm is flashing, you don't write a strongly worded letter.
03:07You don't form a committee.
03:11You definitely don't leave your post for a seven-week vacation.
03:18And you don't make some ridiculous comment like what the president did that will have a, I think he said,
03:28a little gear that will fix everything.
03:32Like, what does that even mean?
03:35So here's what you do.
03:37You act.
03:38You step up and you be the leader that the crew needs.
03:40You make smart decisions based on real data.
03:46I'm not saying this isn't complicated.
03:50The United States has been and has to be at the forefront of technology as we have been for generations.
03:58AI is important to our national security, and it's important to a thriving economy, and we need to find a
04:07path forward that protects Americans and our national interests.
04:19AI could unlock benefits for the American people from curing diseases to solving big engineering problems that unlock new industries
04:29and new jobs.
04:31But we can't expect corporations to help us out of the goodness of their hearts.
04:41That's why I'm introducing the Make AI Work for Americans Act to make sure workers aren't left behind and that
04:51big tech pays their fair share.
04:55These companies are getting rich off of a technology trained on the wealth of humanity's research, knowledge, and work.
05:06Our ideas and discoveries.
05:11My bill would require them to give some of that wealth back to us by investing in the American worker
05:20through an AI Horizon fund.
05:24The fund would use the money we make from holding the tech industries accountable and invest it in training workers,
05:34paid service to career opportunities, and support for those whose jobs just disappear.
05:45It will ensure Americans are prepared and have a choice about what their future looks like and what it looks
05:55like in the next generation of the economy.
05:58We don't have to choose between leading on innovation and protecting workers. We can do both.
06:08That doesn't mean it will be easy.
06:12Our country is polarized.
06:15Those of us in the Senate don't agree on a lot of things.
06:20Just like the Americans we represent have different perspectives and positions.
06:27But they agree on this.
06:30Eighty percent of Americans want us to step in and regulate AI.
06:38Eighty percent.
06:39I hear it from Arizonans every day.
06:42They're worried.
06:43They wake up wondering if today's the day their job just gets automated away.
06:52Wondering if their kids are going to have careers in the future or have a future at all.
07:02Americans across the spectrum want us to step in.
07:06Republicans, Democrats, Independents.
07:08All of them.
07:10The tech industry itself.
07:13Communities worried about data centers.
07:16Families who just want to be able to sleep at night.
07:21All of those groups would like regulation.
07:25It seems that the only people who don't want guardrails happen to be working in the White House.
07:34So what's the holdout?
07:37A lot of folks seem to have forgotten what Congress is for.
07:42They have seemed to lost faith that we can do hard things.
07:48Well, let me remind you.
07:50When our financial system was collapsing in 1933 and FDR asked for help,
07:59Congress passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act.
08:05And it did it in one day.
08:08The International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, the UN body that helps prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
08:18That was started right here in the United States.
08:22Made possible by Congress.
08:25The Civil Rights Act, which reversed decades of racial disenfranchisement, was passed in just a few months once Congress finally
08:36began listening to those fighting for justice.
08:42It's not a question of if we have the power to do big and hard things.
08:50It's if we have the courage.
08:54So to those in Washington who think Congress can't or shouldn't take on this problem, let me ask you, why
09:05are you here?
09:06This is the job.
09:10We weren't elected to just raise money or to trade stocks or to rubber stamp a president's agenda.
09:23We were elected to make people's lives better.
09:29And that's what leaders do.
09:31If we act now on AI, we can avoid a catastrophe and shape a future with more opportunity, with more
09:42security, with more of the things we want and need.
09:48The alarms are sounding.
09:52The signals are clear.
09:57And nobody else is coming to the rescue.
10:00Mr. President, it has to be us.
10:04So let's be the leaders that this country elected.
10:09Let's get this done now.
10:12And as we say in the United States Navy, don't give up the ship.
10:18I yield the floor.
