Dragos Tudorache, a key member of the European Parliament who shepherded the European Union’s legislation on artificial intelligence technologies to a vote, recalls reaching out in 2021 to then-Rep. Jerry McNerney, who was co-chair of the Congressional Artificial Intelligence Caucus.
Tudorache, a lawyer and judge who previously served as Romania’s minister for communications and digital society, wanted to tap U.S. policymakers’ thinking on AI’s impact on workers, industry and society at large. McNerney, who holds a Ph.D. in mathematics, had proposed legislation in 2018 that would have paved the way for AI expertise in government agencies. A 2020 version of the bill, called the AI in Government Act, passed the House but not the Senate.
Similarly, as early as 2018, the European Commission, the executive arm of the 27-member bloc, had proposed regulations aimed at harnessing the power of AI while protecting people’s rights. At the time of Tudorache’s call, only a small group of lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic seemed concerned about the benefits and consequences of what was then considered early-stage tech.
