At most tech CEO hearings in recent years, lawmakers have taken a contentious tone, grilling executives over their data-privacy practices, competitive methods and more.

But at Tuesday’s hearing on AI oversight including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, lawmakers seemed notably more welcoming toward the ChatGPT maker. One senator even went as far as asking whether Altman would be qualified to administer rules regulating the industry.

Altman’s warm welcome on Capitol Hill, which included a dinner discussion the night prior with dozens of House lawmakers and a separate speaking event Tuesday afternoon attended by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has raised concerns from some AI experts who were not in attendance this week.

These experts caution that lawmakers’ decision to learn about the technology from a leading industry executive could unduly sway the solutions they seek to regulate AI. In conversations with CNBC in the days after Altman’s testimony, AI leaders urged Congress to engage with a diverse set of voices in the field to ensure a wide range of concerns are addressed, rather than focus on those that serve corporate interests.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.

Several researchers said the government should focus on enforcing the laws already on the books and applauded a recent joint agency statement that asserted the U.S. already has the power to enforce against discriminatory outcomes from the use of AI.

Dotan said there were bright spots in the hearing when she felt lawmakers were “informed” in their questions. But in other cases, she said she wished lawmakers had pressed Altman for deeper explanations or commitments.

For example, when asked about the likelihood that AI will displace jobs, Altman said that eventually it will create more quality jobs. While Dotan said she agreed with that assessment, she wished lawmakers had asked Altman for more potential solutions to help displaced workers find a living or gain skills training in the meantime, before new job opportunities become more widely available.

“There are so many things that a company with the power of OpenAI backed by Microsoft has when it comes to displacement,” Dotan said. “So to me, to leave it as, ‘Your market is going to sort itself out eventually,’ was very disappointing.”

Noble said she was “stunned” to see that the White House’s announcement of funding for seven new AI research centers seemed to have an emphasis on computer science.

“Most of the women that I know who have been the leading voices around the harms of AI for the last 20 years are not invited to the White House, are not funded by [the National Science Foundation and] are not included in any kind of transformative support,” Noble said. “And yet our work does have and has had tremendous impact on shifting the conversations about the impact of these technologies on society.”

Noble pointed to the White House meeting earlier this month that included Altman and other tech CEOs, such as Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella. Noble said the photo of that meeting “really told the story of who has put themselves in charge. …The same people who’ve been the makers of the problems are now somehow in charge of the solutions.”

Bringing in independent researchers to engage with government would give those experts opportunities to make “important counterpoints” to corporate testimony, Noble said.

Still, other experts noted that they and their peers have engaged with government about AI, albeit without the same media attention Altman’s hearing received and perhaps without a large event like the dinner Altman attended with a wide turnout of lawmakers.

Mitchell worries lawmakers are now “primed” from their discussions with industry leaders.

“They made the decision to start these discussions, to ground these discussions in corporate interests,” Mitchell said. “They could have gone in a totally opposite direction and asked them last.”

Mitchell said she appreciated Altman’s comments on Section 230, the law that helps shield online platforms from being held responsible for their users’ speech. Altman conceded that outputs of generative AI tools would not necessarily be covered by the legal liability shield and a different framework is needed to assess liability for AI products.

“I think, ultimately, the U.S. government will go in a direction that favors large tech corporations,” Mitchell said. “My hope is that other people, or people like me, can at least minimize the damage, or show some of the devil in the details to lead away from some of the more problematic ideas.”

“There’s a whole chorus of people who have been warning about the problems, including bias along the lines of race and gender and disability, inside AI systems,” said Broussard. “And if the critical voices get elevated as much as the commercial voices, then I think we’re going to have a more robust dialogue.”

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