Blumenthal Delivers Opening Statement at the Hearing on AI & Journalism

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Today, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, delivered opening remarks at a hearing titled “Oversight of A.I.: The Future of Journalism.” 

“It is, in fact, a perfect storm. The result of increasing costs, declining revenue, and exploding disinformation. And a lot of the cause of this perfect storm is in fact technologies like Artificial Intelligence,” said Blumenthal in his opening remarks at the hearing. “It is literally eating away at the lifeblood of our democracy, which as we all know is essential to local jobs, local accountability, local awareness and knowledge…local reporting is truly the result of sweat and tears, and sometimes even blood of local reporters.”

“The rise of Big Tech has been directly responsible for the decline in local news, and it is largely the cause of that perfect storm, accelerating and expanding the destruction of local reporting. First Meta, Google, and OpenAI are using the hard work of newspapers and authors to train their AI models without compensation or credit. Adding insult to injury, those models are then used to compete with newspapers and broadcast, cannibalizing readership and revenue from the journalistic institutions that generate the content in the first place,” Blumenthal said, citing a recent New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, along with deep concerns AI will directly replace journalists.

“Our purpose here must be to determine how we can ensure that reporters and readers reap the benefits of AI and avoid the pitfalls,” emphasized Blumenthal. “We need to move more quickly than we did on social media, and learn from our mistakes, in the delay there.”

Blumenthal pointed to potential standards Congress can build consensus around in this area, including licensing requirements, an AI framework similar to the bipartisan proposal by Blumenthal and U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), clarifying that Section 230 does not apply to AI, and updating antitrust laws to stop Big Tech’s monopolistic practices in advertising as proposed by the AMERICA Act and the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act.

Video of Blumenthal’s opening remarks can be found here. Video of Blumenthal’s witness questions and comments can be found here and here. The full transcript of Blumenthal’s opening statement is available below.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT): I'm pleased to convene the subcommittee and welcome our witnesses, welcome everyone who has come to hear, and of course my colleagues from both sides of the aisle for a hearing that is critical to our democracy, critical to the future of journalism in the United States, because local reporting is the lifeblood of our democracy, and local reporting by newspapers and broadcast stations are in existential crisis.

It is, in fact, a perfect storm. The result of increasing costs, declining revenue, and exploding disinformation. And a lot of the cause of this perfect storm is in fact technologies like Artificial Intelligence. Not new, not original for me to observe it. But it is literally eating away at the lifeblood of our democracy, which as we all know is essential to local jobs, local accountability, local awareness and knowledge. Everything from obituaries to the planning and zoning commission. And you can't get it anywhere else. National news, you can buy by the yard, or by the word. But local reporting is truly the result of sweat and tears, and sometimes even blood of local reporters.

What we are seeing, and it is a stark fact about American journalism in existential crisis, is the decline and potential death of local reporting as a result of that perfect storm. Local papers are closing at a staggering rate. One third of our newspapers have been lost in the last two decades. I don't need to tell anyone here that some of the oldest newspapers in the country, like the Hartford Courant, have closed their newsrooms, and it is a national tragedy, a painful and traumatic time, for reporters, editors, and their industry, and a deep danger for our democracy.

Hedge funds are buying those papers, not for the news they can communicate, but often for the real estate that they own. They are publishing weekly instead of daily, and they are buying out reporting staffs, sometimes firing them. Millions of Americans now live in a news desert, where there is no local paper, and that’s especially true for rural populations and communities of color, so there is an equity aspect to this challenge as well.

For any of us on this panel, we know the importance of local news, but so should people who live in those communities. Because just as local police and fire services are the first responders, local reporters are often the first informers, and that information is no less important to them than fire and police service in the long term.

The rise of Big Tech has been directly responsible for the decline in local news, and it is largely the cause of that perfect storm, accelerating and expanding the destruction of local reporting. First Meta, Google, and OpenAI are using the hard work of newspapers and authors to train their AI models without compensation or credit. Adding insult to injury, those models are then used to compete with newspapers and broadcast, cannibalizing readership and revenue from the journalistic institutions that generate the content in the first place.

As the New York Times’ recent lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft shows, those AI models will even essentially plagiarize articles and directly permit readers to evade pay walls to access protected content free of charge. I realize that those claims and allegations are yet to be contended or concluded in court, but they are certainly more than plausible.

Second, the models may also misidentify or misattribute statements about media-outlet content or endorsement of a product, and the result is more rampant misinformation and disinformation online and damage to the brand and credibility of those media outlets. And there are legitimate fears that AI will directly replace journalists. The experiments we have seen with fake reporters are a breach of trust. It is never a substitute for local reporters in local newsrooms, broadcasters, journalists who reflect their community and talk to their neighbors.

So our purpose here must be to determine how we can ensure that reporters and readers reap the benefits of AI and avoid the pitfalls. That’s been one of the themes of our hearings. And another has been that we need to move more quickly than we did on social media, and learn from our mistakes, in the delay there.

Once again, we need to learn from the mistakes of that failure to oversee social media and adopt standards, and I think there are some that maybe we can form a consensus around, just as Senator Hawley and I have on the framework that we have proposed. First on licensing, guaranteeing that newspapers and broadcasters are given credit financially and publicly for reporting and other content they provide. Second, on an AI framework such as we proposed, requiring transparency about the limits and use of AI models, including disclosures when copyrighted material is used, as provided for in our framework now, but we may need to expand on it and make it more explicit. Third, on Section 230, clarifying that Section 230 does not apply to AI, again as Senator Hawley and I have proposed in our legislation, to create the right incentives for companies to develop trustworthy products. And finally, -- not really finally, but fourth -- updating our antitrust laws to stop Big Tech's monopolistic business practices in advertising that undercut newspapers. And I want to thank my colleagues Senator Klobuchar and Senator Lee for their work on legislation that I have joined as a cosponsor.

We are fortunate to have an extraordinary panel today. I want to thank all of you for being here. And now, turn to the Ranking Member for his comment.

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