ICYMI: Grassley Discusses AI Whistleblower Protection Act During “A Starting Point” Interview
WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) joined “A Starting Point” to share details about his AI Whistleblower Protection Act.
The legislation provides explicit whistleblower protections to those developing and deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI). Currently, some AI companies’ restrictive severance and nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) create a chilling effect on current and former employees looking to make whistleblower disclosures to the federal government, including Congress.
Video and excerpts of Grassley’s remarks follow.
On the Importance of Whistleblowers:
“A whistleblower can be anybody, most often in government that I deal with, but sometimes in the private sector. People that know something isn't right, [that a] law might be violated. People might be stealing taxpayers’ money [or] taxes aren't being paid, whatever the case might be. They think it's not right. They may not even think of themselves as a whistleblower. I think of them as just patriotic Americans that want the government to do what the government's supposed to do: obey the laws [and] spend the taxpayers’ money the way Congress intended.”
On the Need for AI-Specific Whistleblower Protections:
“I’ve had [AI] whistleblowers come to me and say that things aren’t right. They want to expose it … That's why we need laws that would protect whistleblowers within the AI community, as we would any place in government or in the private sector …
“My bill will explicitly protect communications of current and former AI employees making legally protected disclosure to Congress or a federal agency or to a supervisor. It seems as time goes on, AI is growing. My timely legislation will bring transparency and accountability to the artificial intelligence sector before it's too late.”
On Shady Non-Disclosure Agreements:
“[These] non-disclosure statements that would say ‘you can't talk about this,’ and it just prohibits and inhibits people that know something's wrong coming to Congress to talk about it. It's a violation of free speech, [and] it's a way of covering up things that are wrong, that either people in government don't want public, or private business wants to keep the information within the business.”
On the Free Market System:
“I believe in the free enterprise system. And of course, that causes me to support pro-business, pro-growth policies. I don't see my whistleblower protection interest in any way violating that, because the government is legitimately a referee within the free enterprise system. So, all of this legislation isn't about upending any non-disclosure agreements or ending companies’ rights to confidentiality. This is pretty simply stated as being something to ensure people who see wrongdoing can speak up without retribution before more harm is done to the public.
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