With artificial intelligence threatening to upend workplaces throughout Silicon Valley, the area\u2019s representative in Congress has an idea he hopes will reduce anxieties about the revolutionary technology: nudge tech companies to take a central role in educating the workforce of the future.<\/p>\n
The tense relationship between recent college graduates and AI has been on display at graduation commencement ceremonies throughout the nation, with clips of graduates booing speakers who mention AI<\/a> quickly achieving viral status. Congressman Sam Liccardo<\/a> \u2014 whose 16th District includes the headquarters of Meta, Google, xAI and other tech giants \u2014 thinks one solution to the nation\u2019s employment anxieties is to invite these firms to create education programs at local colleges and community centers, he said this week in an interview with Palo Alto Weekly.<\/p>\n The idea is based on former President Barack Obama\u2019s proposal to give tax credits to companies that invest in programs that allow workers in the Iron Belt and the Appalachia build new skills. Liccardo wants to do something similar with tech companies, with one key addition: a company that hires out of the program would get an additional tax credit.<\/p>\n \u201cYou only know they really invested in the program if they\u2019re willing to pay employees that come out of that program,\u201d Liccardo said.<\/p>\n Liccardo has some experience with programs of this sort. As San Jose mayor, he was engaged in discussions with Alaska Airlines on expanding the number of flights to his city. When the airline asserted it didn\u2019t have enough airplane engine mechanics, it entered into a partnership with California State University in which Alaska Airlines contributed funding to expand the mechanic program. The same model can apply to tech, he suggested.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what the skills and jobs of the future will be 10 years from now, but I\u2019m certain that the private sector is going to know what those skills and jobs are before the public sector does because they\u2019re going to be hiring for them,\u201d Liccardo said. \u201cAnd so what we needed to do is break down the silos between those employers and the public sector educators.\u201d<\/p>\n The topic of AI disruption has become increasingly contentious in Liccardo\u2019s district, with\u00a0Amazon, Meta,<\/a>\u00a0Intuit and LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0all recently announcing layoffs as they\u00a0lean into the new technology<\/a>. Meta has reportedly told its employees it plans to reduce its global workforce by 10% as part of its embrace of artificial technology.<\/p>\n Amid these changes, Liccardo has become an assertive \u2014 if moderate \u2014 voice on AI legislation, recently penning opinion pieces in the Washington Post<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/a>\u00a0that oppose stronger regulation of AI models and bans on data centers, respectively.<\/p>\n While data centers face populist opposition<\/a> in communities across the nation (a recent\u00a0Gallup poll<\/a>\u00a0found that seven in 10 Americans oppose AI data centers in their area, with 48% saying they \u201cstrongly oppose\u201d them), Liccardo said he does not want to see a slowdown in their construction. In fact, he\u2019s perfectly willing to let them speed up, provided that the tech companies that build them also invest in renewable infrastructure.<\/p>\n Data center builders currently have to go through the process of getting interconnection permits, which could take between three and five years, he explained. Under his proposal, a company that agrees to invest in batteries and the power grid would win streamlined approval for its data center. This would address many of the concerns from regional power agencies that are worried about energy spikes that result from data centers, which require a high volume of electricity for both operation of IT equipment and for cooling.<\/p>\n \u201cYou provide that resilience, and you solve the intermittency problem of renewables, and you also enable their ability to build faster,\u201d Liccardo said.<\/p>\n On the topic of AI safety, Liccardo similarly wants to defer to a large degree to the tech companies that are developing the new technology. In his May 22 opinion piece in the Washington Post, Liccardo argued the federal government is poorly equipped to effectively regulate artificial intelligence. The industry requires a referee, not a regulator, he wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cA regulator proactively establishes a set of safety rules and requires that a product or service satisfy them to access U.S. markets,\u201d he wrote. \u201cA referee, by contrast, evaluates the state of play in an industry and determines which products are safest. Those safest competitors set the standard by which all market participants obtain the referee\u2019s benefit or sanction.\u201d<\/p>\n Under his proposed legislation, the Commerce Department\u2019s Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) would define the best safety practices for AI models and then identify companies that achieve these practices. Companies that are deemed safest would earn federal preemption that would shield them from potential liability under state law.<\/p>\n \u201cThis approach appears better suited for a fast-evolving technology than a fixed safety regulatory standard,\u201d Liccardo wrote. \u201cAs competitive incentives push developers to improve model safety, CAISI would raise its bar to reflect the newest best practices.\u201d<\/p>\n