As members of Congress grapple with ways to regulate the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence, they’re also divided on how to use it in their own personal and professional lives.
In Illinois, U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, a former Fermilab physicist, is using AI to help draft legislation. U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth says she “involuntarily” uses it in Google searches. Others, like U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez are purposefully steering clear.
“No, absolutely. I never have used it,” said Ramirez, a Chicago Democrat. “… This whole move fast and break things is not acceptable innovation strategy when we know that the things that end up being broken are not just a computer, a laptop, a cell phone. It’s people’s lives, their rights and their privacy.”
AI is at an inflection point in America and the world. Some are gently experimenting with platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or using it to create playlists on Spotify. Others are turning AI features off their personal email and booing commencement speakers who even utter the word AI. And with that stark difference in public opinion, Congress is trying to find ways to regulate it in more than 300 bills.
President Donald Trump is also trying to manage the industry, directing Congress in March to “preempt state AI laws” he believes are too burdensome and laying out guidance that would protect children, prevent electricity costs from surging, prevent censorship, respect intellectual property rights and teach Americans how to use the technology. Trump in June also issued an executive order asking lead AI developers like OpenAI and Anthropic to submit their AI models for government review up to 30 days before they’re released to the public.
In Illinois, state lawmakers in May approved legislation that requires AI companies to publish and annually update plans to address severe risks from their AI models. It also mandates an annual third-party audit on safety issues. That bill is still awaiting Gov. JB Pritzker’s signature.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth says she’s a casual AI user — but she has plenty of concerns when it comes to the costs of data centers. The rise of artificial intelligence is leading to a huge uptick in data centers. In Illinois, some, but not all of the state’s more than 160 data centers, are helping to run AI. Pritzker in June placed a pause on all new state tax incentives for data centers and implored lawmakers to pass reforms in the upcoming fall veto secession, citing concerns over energy and water resources.
“I’ve used some ChatGPT. I mostly end up using AI involuntarily, because when I do a Google search on something, the AI answer comes up first,” Duckworth said. She also recently used AI to try to figure out who manufactured a T-shirt her daughter, who had some fabric sensitivity issues, loved.
“I’m in charge of the AI, and, and I specifically know what I’m looking for as a consumer, and I do think AI has some real potential for breakthroughs in healthcare, in particular,” Duckworth said. “But again, like anything else, we must remain the master of the technology and not the other way around.”
Duckworth called Illinois’ approach to regulating data centers “a thoughtful one” and said the state must get guardrails in place before the industry explodes, as it did in California.
The senator said data centers shouldn’t be able to raise utility prices and water bills, and should be using wastewater, not fresh drinking water. She also believes they shouldn’t be allowed to lead to rising electricity bills, and should instead bring in their own generators and co-locate with a nuclear power plant.
“Data centers have a lot of money, and they will pay to comply to whatever they need to, in order to be established. But if you don’t put up the guardrails, they’ll do whatever they want,” Duckworth said. “So, we need strong community input.”
U.S. Rep. Sean Casten, a Downers Grove Democrat who worked in clean energy and as a biochemical engineer before being elected to Congress, said he uses AI in his office — and he sees its immense value when it comes to the private sector and research fields. There is no directive from House leadership to use AI, but congressional staffers have been authorized to use Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT and Google Gemini.
“We use it a lot in the office, and look, we’re at a point where I think it’s basically replaced web searches as the way to find information. In that sense, I think if I had the job I had before I came to Congress, I would be using it a lot more,” Casten said. “The power of it to write code, to query huge data sets, to do all sorts of things that I did all the time in the private sector. I just don’t have as much cause to do that in this job, so I think about it more from the perspective of a legislator.”
Casten said he understands the value AI has when it comes to science, but he’s also worried about the jobs that are being eliminated.
“I have real concerns, just politically,” Casten said. “What happens to a society with large numbers of unemployed young people, and particularly young people in professions that have historically skewed male? Because unemployed young men is sort of a recipe for a political crisis.”
He also has ethical concerns, including a lack of liability when it comes to AI companies, alongside a push from companies to “move fast.”
“Every time they come and present to us in Congress, they say, ‘We have to move really fast, because otherwise the Chinese will, and I can’t be held accountable for whatever this does, because the important thing is that we build it,’” Casten said. “That’s fundamentally the same argument that led us to the Cold War.”
Foster has a more open-minded approach to the burgeoning technology, which he likened to writing down a “great idea” on paper to see if it still makes sense.
“I use it for computer coding and drafting legislation,” Foster said. “One of the great things that I find (with) these advanced AI tools … is I come up with some great idea for a piece of legislation, and then before I waste my staff’s time with an idea that won’t write, I have ChatGPT, or typically Claude, ask what would be involved in writing this legislation, and very often they’ll point out… ‘Here’s the eight big problems with it,’ but other times it will say, ‘Hey, this, this actually is a good thing.’”
He compared the use of AI to his “whole career in physics,” where he could input ideas and place focus in one direction.
“This is sort of the way I operate, but it means that I have to have a very tolerant staff, and I think their life may have gotten easier when I can use these AI tools to pre-filter the ideas,” Foster said.
Foster thinks Congress should have a full committee on information technology to tackle artificial intelligence but says states, or a coalition of states, should take the lead in creating regulations until Congress acts. And he’s worried about plenty of things, including AI’s impact on teachers and how it is already affecting the job market.
“We’re not ready for this, and we’ll have to rethink how our economy works when the link has been broken between talent and hard work and economic success,” Foster said. “Because when that’s no longer there, we have to rethink what our value is as a human.”