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“Shaping Tomorrow: The Future of Artificial Intelligence”

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation

September 17, 2025 (recording linked here)

HEARING INFORMATION

Witnesses and Written Testimony (Linked):

• Ms. Kinsey Fabrizio: President, Consumer Technology Association

• Mr. Samuel Hammond: Chief Economist, Foundation for American Innovation

• Dr. Nicol Turner Lee: Senior Fellow, Governance Studies and Director, Center for Technology Innovation, Brookings Institution

HEARING HIGHLIGHTS

IN THEIR WORDS

SUMMARY OF OPENING STATEMENTS FROM THE FULL COMMITTEE AND SUBCOMMITTEE

• Subcommittee Chair Mace opened the hearing by emphasizing the critical importance of artificial intelligence (AI) to America’s future. She noted that AI was already shaping industries from healthcare to agriculture, providing efficiencies, breakthroughs, and improved services. She highlighted the high stakes of AI leadership, warning that if the United States did not lead, adversaries who did not share American values would set global standards. She acknowledged uncertainties about whether artificial general intelligence was imminent or decades away but stressed that the risks of waiting were too high. She concluded by underscoring the subcommittee’s responsibility to ensure AI was developed responsibly, safely, and in alignment with American values.

• Ranking Member Brown stated that AI was already reshaping the economy, workforce, and daily life, and she urged a focus on responsible and trustworthy use. She warned that without safeguards, AI could deepen inequalities, leave workers behind, and create opportunities for exploitation. She emphasized the disproportionate risk faced by Black workers, who were concentrated in jobs most vulnerable to automation. She argued that preparing a diverse and resilient workforce was critical to both fairness and national competitiveness. Finally, she highlighted the risks posed by foreign adversaries, scams, and fraud, stressing that oversight must balance innovation with protections for workers and communities.

SUMMARY OF WITNESS STATEMENT

• Ms. Fabrizio shared how AI already affected her own life as a working mother and leader, acting as a personal assistant that saved time. She described how AI was already powering innovations across industries, from autonomous tractors to digital twins in manufacturing. She stressed that American companies led the AI race but faced growing competition from China’s heavily funded national strategy. She advocated for a 10-year pause on enforcement of state and local AI laws to allow Congress to develop a federal framework, noting that inconsistent state laws created crippling challenges for startups. She urged Congress to foster innovation, enact federal privacy protections, and avoid overly restrictive regulations like the EU’s AI Act to ensure America remained the leader in AI.

• Mr. Hammond explained that AI capabilities were improving at an unprecedented pace, with reinforcement learning driving rapid advances in reasoning and autonomy. He noted that AI models had already progressed from generating text to solving PhD-level problems and coding applications, with task performance doubling every four to seven months. He warned that AI might soon be capable of performing full workdays of tasks autonomously, possibly within a year. He identified four policy takeaways: monitoring frontier AI as a national security priority, securing America’s lead in computing infrastructure, advancing AI control and security measures, and preparing for transformative changes to government institutions. He concluded that reconciling powerful AI systems with America’s tradition of liberty would be the central challenge of the era.

• Dr. Turner Lee testified that AI was already widely integrated into workplaces and services, with most companies planning increased investment. She identified three priorities: establishing ethical frameworks for AI governance, ensuring a diverse and agile workforce pipeline, and monitoring AI’s unknown risks. She raised concerns about fraud and scams exploiting seniors, arguing that without strong federal privacy and consumer protection laws, Americans would be vulnerable to malicious AI uses. She stressed that immigration and domestic education policies were both vital to sustaining America’s AI talent base, warning of brain drain and declining math and reading scores. She concluded by expressing skepticism about imminent artificial general intelligence but urged Congress to enact safeguards to protect consumers and ensure trust in AI innovation.

SUMMARY OF KEY Q&A

• Chair Mace asked Ms. Fabrizio what most surprised her about AI, pressed her on why a 10-year moratorium on state AI laws mattered, and questioned Mr. Hammond about compute and energy constraints, nuclear power, timelines for “singularity,” and the chief risks of losing control and mass proliferation.
  Ms. Fabrizio answered that healthcare use cases like a surgical “digital twin” of a heart had been most striking and that a patchwork of state laws would stifle startups and undermine U.S. competitiveness. Mr. Hammond answered that America’s edge hinged on hardware and energy where China was rapidly expanding capacity, that nuclear would likely arrive in the 2030s, that a singularity could plausibly occur this decade, and that the greatest risks were loss of control and widespread powerful capabilities straining institutions.

• Ranking Member Brown asked how Brookings’ AI Equity Lab worked to prevent AI from worsening inequities for marginalized communities.
  Dr. Turner Lee answered that the Lab convened interdisciplinary and diverse experts to address high-risk domains where biased data could harm credit, housing, and opportunity, and urged expanding who gets a seat at the table.
  Brown then asked what steps the federal government and Congress should take to prepare the workforce and set guardrails while encouraging innovation.
  Turner Lee answered that training the federal workforce, ensuring transparency and high-quality auditable data, and investing in literacy, upskilling, and mentorship across generations would promote responsible, effective AI adoption. Brown closed by reiterating the need for federal legislation that protected rights and prevented bias while enabling responsible innovation.

• Rep. McGuire asked for singularity timelines, whether China used AI for social control, whether stakes and workforce needs were high, views on merit and diversity, and whether expanding U.S. energy production and grid capacity was essential to win the AI race. Dr. Turner Lee answered that singularity claims remained hypothetical and likely further out, agreed China ran a highly surveilled state misusing AI, supported preparing the best talent while widening access, and urged grid upgrades with caution about environmental impacts on disadvantaged communities. Ms. Fabrizio answered that humans-in-the-loop remained essential and that China approached energy differently, emphasized modernizing the grid to meet AI demands, and noted AI could accelerate research to discover energy solutions. Mr. Hammond answered that a singularity could be this decade with capabilities accelerating, confirmed China’s misuse of AI (sometimes with U.S. tech), supported “all of the above” energy with near-term reliance on natural gas, and projected autonomous AI labs soon capable of discovering new materials and energy sources.

• Rep. Subramanyam asked each witness for concise solutions to AI-driven job displacement, probed what “deregulating the labor market” meant, and later pressed for yes-or-no views on whether AI would create more jobs than it displaces. Ms. Fabrizio answered that Congress should invest in AI-focused STEM, reskilling and apprenticeships, emphasized that properly used AI would boost worker capacity, and said AI would create new industries and many jobs. Mr. Hammond answered that near-term displacement would skew toward adaptable white-collar roles while trades tied to data-center build-outs would grow, clarified that he meant easing occupational licensing, and predicted a general pattern where AI tools would let many people function as software engineers. Dr. Turner Lee answered that education should shift to AI literacy across a K–20 continuum with equitable resources, urged clearer employer disclosure of which jobs would change, cautioned that data-center construction did not equal long-term job counts, and said AI would change the nature of work more than simply add or remove jobs.

• Rep. Burlison asked Mr. Hammond to elaborate on AI self-improvement, entered an article on AlphaEvolve into the record, discussed AI as a productivity multiplier with Dr. Turner Lee, asked Ms. Fabrizio about EU regulations’ chilling effect, and pressed Mr. Hammond on whether the U.S. faced an electricity shortfall. Mr. Hammond answered that AIs were already coding, fixing bugs, and even writing new algorithms, cited Google’s AlphaEvolve, and agreed the nation was in an electricity crunch as electrification and data-center demand rose. Dr. Turner Lee answered that AI could magnify productivity like modern farm machinery but depended on connectivity and compute access, and she rejected the notion of “robots bossing us around.” Ms. Fabrizio answered that stringent EU rules had hindered innovation, whereas the U.S. startup ecosystem—evident at CES—thrived under a more supportive framework.

• Rep. Crane asked how to steer people into trades amid dire AI job-loss forecasts, sought current tech examples creating new jobs, questioned Mr. Hammond about bot-driven misinformation after a high-profile assassination, asked what agencies should do about foreign AI bots, probed AI’s role in education, and requested regulatory advice. Ms. Fabrizio answered that reskilling and upskilling—including new AI trainings at CES 2026—were essential, argued AI would augment and create jobs, and highlighted healthcare intake systems as a current opportunity. Mr. Hammond answered that bot detection remained a hard, fast-evolving challenge, urged restricting advanced chip exports that enable adversaries’ AI operations, encouraged innovative AI-enabled schooling models, and recommended monitoring the AI frontier, funding research on control and interpretability, and protecting U.S. advantages in AI hardware.

• Chair Mace asked about China’s access to Nvidia’s H20-class chips, probed reported smuggling through third countries, raised bills like the GAIN AI Act and a chip security proposal, and pressed witnesses on whether China was the top AI threat and the consequences if the U.S. fell behind. Mr. Hammond answered that China sought to indigenize with Huawei chips but still craved U.S. hardware, urged denying advanced exports, noted smuggling via intermediaries in Malaysia/Singapore/Taiwan, and supported measures like first-refusal purchases and on-chip location verification. Ms. Fabrizio answered that China used AI for surveillance and military purposes aided by lax privacy, and she urged a national, risk-based, tech-neutral AI framework with preemption so U.S. innovation could outpace China. Dr. Turner Lee answered that while China posed a major threat, the U.S. should also cultivate alternative markets (e.g., Africa and the “global majority”) and allow state-level experimentation focused on consumer protection rather than solely geopolitical competition.

• Rep. Subramanyam asked Mr. Hammond to expand on how an AI-driven abundance of cognitive labor threatened U.S. service sectors and what could “buy time,” then asked all witnesses which jobs would be lost or gained and what Congress should do. Mr. Hammond answered that when intelligence became abundant the scarce value shifted to heavy industry and tacit know-how where China excelled, and he said buying time meant strict export controls to deny China frontier compute. Ms. Fabrizio answered that, as with the internet era, AI would spawn new industries and roles (e.g., data scientists and ethicists) and already created sectoral opportunities such as agriculture. Dr. Turner Lee answered that white-collar efficiency gains would contrast with trickier blue-collar impacts, warned about potential losses in unionized frontline roles, and urged targeted scans by sector and skills so workers could transition into AI-enabled tasks.
  Subramanyam asked what Congress should do about displacement. Ms. Fabrizio and Turner Lee answered that Congress should prioritize upskilling/apprenticeships and AI literacy, while Hammond suggested shifting training to on-the-job models and cutting entry barriers, given the poor track record of federal retraining programs.

• Rep. Burlison asked how the state-by-state privacy patchwork harmed innovators and whether broad federal privacy protections were needed, then requested specifics and asked Mr. Hammond how to embed values in AI before turning to Dr. Turner Lee about stronger data protections. Ms. Fabrizio answered that inconsistent state laws especially burdened startups, advantaged large firms, and chilled scaling, so a preemptive, risk-based, tech-neutral federal framework with liability safe harbors for compliant companies was needed (while offering to follow up with detailed provisions). Mr. Hammond answered that reliably aligning autonomous systems with human values remained an unsolved research problem, beyond today’s promptable “chatbot personas.” Dr. Turner Lee answered that the U.S. was overdue for a national privacy standard governing what goes into and comes out of AI systems, including consent rules and limits on third-party access, given rising abuses like voice-clone scams.

• Rep. Crane asked whether Taiwan’s dominance in chip manufacturing posed a threat if China invaded, what share of chips came from Taiwan, and what the economic consequences would be, then pressed about U.S. capacity to build fabs and compared AI’s disruption to past industrial shifts. Mr. Hammond answered that a Chinese invasion would likely destroy TSMC, that over 90% of advanced AI logic chips and around 60% of general semiconductors came from Taiwan, that a blockade would trigger global depression, but that U.S. fabs like the one in Arizona showed promise if supported by a “Chips Act 2.0.”
  Crane then asked whether AI disruption compared to the internet, whether job losses like 50% of white-collar roles in five years were realistic, and how workers would fare. Ms. Fabrizio answered that AI disruption would be positive if managed, enabling solutions for healthcare, farming, energy, and smart cities, that displaced workers would shift to new jobs by adopting AI, and that people using AI would replace those who did not, but education and early STEM investment were vital.
  Crane pressed further on the risk of broken promises about retraining, like coal miners told to learn coding, and whether current education would be devalued.Fabrizio answered that retraining and upskilling remained essential, beginning with early AI literacy and continuous investment, while Dr. Turner Lee answered that more data and research were needed before making definitive workforce projections.

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