Mark Kelly

Mr. President, Anecdote · 211 wordsI happen to be the last person to sit in the commander’s seat of Space Shuttle Endeavour.¹ It is hard to describe how it feels to be strapped to 4\1/2\ million pounds of fuel, waiting for three main engines and two solid rocket boosters to ignite underneath you. It gives you clarity because flying that thing--it is not one dangerous moment. It is continuous. There is always a catastrophic failure lurking around every corner. And when things go sideways on you and you are troubleshooting a cooling issue while managing an electrical failure, while mission control is telling you something that contradicts your instruments, it requires that you are keenly aware of what is happening. You figure out how to separate the signal from the noise. So you pay attention to the data, and you do your very best to understand what is happening with a very complicated machine. You ignore the noise, you evaluate the numbers, and you work the problem. And you listen when the alarms are telling you something isn’t right. These last few weeks--as engineers, researchers, and CEOs have all been shouting about AI becoming a threat to humanity’s very survival--I feel like I am back in that seat with the master alarm blaring and systems failing.Anecdote Positioning · 6 wordsAnd nobody is steering the ship.Positioning Claims · 79 wordsWhile the people inside the industry discuss catastrophic damage and the chance that AI ``will kill us all by the end of the decade,’’ the White House is actively lobbying against regulation.<sup>23</sup> Our President calls Americans’ fears a ``hoax’’ and a ``SICK conspiracy.’’<sup>4</sup> He says that we don’t need new guardrails, and Speaker Johnson says that Congress isn’t qualified to make them.<sup>5</sup> Instead, he wants a summit-- someday--but, in the meantime, we will revisit it after a 7-week recess.<sup>6</sup> Positioning · 60 wordsWhen the master alarm is flashing, you don’t write a strongly worded letter. You don’t form a committee. You definitely don’t leave your post for a 7-week vacation. And you don’t make some ridiculous comment, like what the President did, that we will have a--I think he said a little ``gear’’ that will fix everything. What does that even mean?Positioning Reasoning · 35 wordsSo here is what you do: You act. You step up, and you be the leader that the crew needs. You make smart decisions based on real data. I am not saying this isn’t complicated. Claims · 34 wordsThe United States has been-- and has to be--at the forefront of technology, as we have been for generations. AI is important to our national security, and it is important to a thriving economy, Reasoning · 15 wordsand we need to find a path forward that protects Americans and our national interests.Vague promise Claims · 31 wordsI am also not saying we abandon innovation. AI could unlock benefits for the American people, from curing diseases to solving big engineering problems that unlock new industries and new jobs. Reasoning · 15 wordsBut we can’t expect corporations to help us out of the goodness of their hearts. Promise · 28 wordsThat is why I am introducing the Make AI Work for Americans Act, to make sure workers aren’t left behind and that Big Tech pays their fair share.⁷ Claims · 22 wordsThese companies are getting rich off of a technology trained on the wealth of humanity’s research, knowledge, and work--our ideas and discoveries. Promise · 83 wordsMy bill would require them to give some of that wealth back to us by investing in the American worker through an AI Horizon Fund.⁸ The fund would use the money we make from holding the tech industry accountable and invest it in training workers, paid service-to-career opportunities, and support for those whose jobs just disappear. It will ensure Americans are prepared and have a choice about what their future looks like--and what it looks like in the next generation of the economy. Reasoning · 16 wordsWe don’t have to choose between leading on innovation and protecting workers. We can do both. Claims · 35 wordsThat doesn’t mean it will be easy. Our country is polarized. Those of us in the Senate don’t agree on a lot of things, just like the Americans we represent have different perspectives and positions. Reasoning · 5 wordsBut they agree on this: Claims · 113 words80 percent of Americans want us to step in and regulate AI--80 percent.⁹ I hear it from Arizonans every day. They are worried. They wake up wondering if today is the day their job just gets automated away, wondering if their kids are going to have careers in the future--or have a future at all. Americans across the spectrum want us to step in--Republicans, Democrats, Independents, all of them. The tech industry itself, communities worried about data centers, families who just want to be able to sleep at night--all of those groups would like regulation. It seems that the only people who don’t want guardrails happen to be working in the White House.Logical leap Positioning · 29 wordsSo what is the holdup? A lot of folks seem to have forgotten what Congress is for. They seem to have lost faith that we can do hard things.Positioning Procedure · 5 wordsWell, let me remind you: ProcedureClaims · 83 wordsWhen our financial system was collapsing in 1933 and F.D.R. asked for help, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Relief Act, ¹⁰Logical leapand it did it in 1 day.¹¹ The International Atomic Energy Agency, or the IAEA--the U.N. body that helps prevent the spread of nuclear weapons--was started right here in the United States, made possible by Congress.¹² The Civil Rights Act, which reversed decades of racial disenfranchisement, was passed in just a few months, once Congress finally began listening to those fighting for justice. Reasoning · 24 wordsIt is not a question of if we have the power to do big and hard things. It is if we have the courage. Positioning · 44 wordsSo to those in Washington who think Congress can’t or shouldn’t take on this problem, let me ask you: Why are you here? This is the job. We weren’t elected to just raise money or to trade stocks or to rubberstamp a President’s agenda.Positioning Reasoning · 44 wordsWe were elected to make people’s lives better, and that is what leaders do. If we act now on AI, we can avoid a catastrophe and shape a future with more opportunity, with more security, with more of the things we want and need. Positioning · 21 wordsThe alarms are sounding. The signals are clear.Unearned certainty And nobody else is coming to the rescue. It has to be us.Positioning Promise · 14 wordsSo let’s be the leaders that this country elected. Let’s get this done now. Aside · 13 wordsAnd as we say in the U.S. Navy, don’t give up the ship.Aside Procedure · 4 wordsI yield the floor.Procedure