GOP Sen. Hawley laughs off Cruz and Rubio's laissez faire AI approach: "Not gonna happen"

Private stairwell leading up to the Senate floor. Photo: Matt Laslo

The US Capitol is one big game of telephone — and the press corps plays the cables, as you’ll hear in my interview with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) where he reacts to my description of the AI positions of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Marco Rubio (R-FL).*

Hawley comes out swinging, but not so much at his fellow Republicans — he’s dumbfounded by the notion of anyone trusting Silicon Valley firms to be good actors after years and years of them breaking their promises to policymakers as they trade our private data as if it’s stock.

*Rebuttal: Hawley is reacting to what Rubio told me in Ep. 2 of Laslo Lecturing Lawmakers, which is here. That Rubio interview turned into this feature for WIRED magazine, The Ghost of Privacy Past Haunts the Senate’s AI Future.

I’m a WIRED magazine congressional correspondent. Since 2016, I’ve lectured on new media’s impact on government at Johns Hopkins University (MA in Gov’t). @MattLaslo on most social media.