Elon Musk discussed artificial intelligence with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in the U.S. Senate to discuss artificial intelligence. NBC News reports.

“It was good. We talked about the future,” Musk commented on the results of the meeting.

When asked for more details, the billionaire said they spoke about ‘AI and the economy’.

Schumer also described the meeting as ‘good’.

“We talked about Buffalo. Tesla has a large factory in Buffalo. And we talked about AI,” the senator told reporters.

Schumer presented a framework for future regulation of artificial intelligence. In his words, this would help the United States stay competitive in the face of China and impose new restrictions on potentially dangerous AI tools.

“I look forward to the opportunity to work […] to shape this proposal and refine the legislation, to ensure that AI fulfils its promise to create a better world,” Schumer said at the time.

This was not Musk’s first meeting with lawmakers. In January 2023 he posted on Twitter about talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Schumer said it was their second meeting. They first met about 10 years ago when the senator, together with colleague Harry Reid, visited SpaceX’s headquarters.

In April, Musk registered an AI company X to compete with OpenAI. Later the billionaire said he planned to develop a ‘maximally truthful’ chatbot TruthGPT.

In the same month, plans were announced to create a dedicated working group to study how the government could use AI to bolster national security.

In March, Musk and hundreds of other experts signed an open letter urging companies to pause experiments with large language models.