Elon Musk will be there. So will his current nemesis, Mark Zuckerberg.
The two tech titans will be in the same room Wednesday, the first time since Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a cage match in June, as invitees to the first of as many as 10 insight forums arranged by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., to brief senators on artificial intelligence technologies.
The guest list is a who’s who of Silicon Valley, especially those who are guiding the world of AI. Others expected include Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, the parent of Google and YouTube; Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft; Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT; and Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft.
The forums also feature several advocates who have called for restraining tech advances, civil rights groups, and those representing industries that are likely to be significantly affected by AI technologies.
The participants include Tristan Harris, co-founder of Center for Humane Technology; Maya Wiley, CEO of Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights; Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers; Rumman Chowdhury, CEO of Humane Intelligence; and Meredith Stiehm, president of the Writers Guild of America, among others.
One participant, speaking on the condition of anonymity, joked that at least one or two of the tech CEOs should have sat out the briefing, similar to the tradition of one U.S. Cabinet official staying away from the annual State of the Union address by the president to Congress.
Schumer has said the forums are meant to supplement the traditional work of committees. Congressional aides familiar with the process said the closed-door gatherings will feature moderated discussions among the participants and will allow senators to listen and ask questions.
As for the beef between Musk, CEO of Tesla and X, previously known as Twitter, and Zuckerberg, founder of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, nothing has come of the challenge yet, even after Zuckerberg said “Send me location” on Instagram, posting pictures of himself training in judo and other martial arts.
The rest of the participants, according to Schumer’s office, are:
- Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic
- Clément Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face
- Eric Fanning, CEO of Aerospace Industries Association
- Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA
- Alex Karp, co-founder and CEO of Palantir
- Arvind Krishna, CEO of IBM
- Janet Murguía, president of Unidos US
- Deborah Raji, U.C. Berkley researcher
- Charles Rivkin, chairman & CEO Motion Picture Association
- Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google
- Elizabeth Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO
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