Senators fail to press social media CEOs on AI at child safety hearing

February 1, 2024

Protection of children on social media was the focus of a Senate hearing Wednesday. Axios reports that lawmakers did not grill executives on the rise of AI and some of its associated problems.

The focus instead was on regulation of old and new technology and how to address failures in content moderation, age verification and enforcing laws against child sexual abuse material. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was among several social media executives questioned for nearly for 4 hours.

The senators were trying to win commitments on a number of specific bills aimed at reducing social media harm to minors. Concerns have been raised over the challenges posed by AI image generators, video engines and chatbots.

At the same time, AI-based techniques power much of the filtering programs these platforms use to weed out inappropriate material.

According to Axios, though AI was mentioned in one person’s testimony, the topic did not come up again throughout hours of Senate questioning.

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