Legislation to Monitor AI Threats Up for House Vote

Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, has introduced legislation that is expected to pass the House this evening to bolster reporting on threats to the U.S. presented by terrorists employing generative artificial intelligence. 

“While artificial intelligence is a transformational technology tool with immense potential for good, we know it is actively being weaponized by foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) seeking ways to exploit the application to recruit, radicalize, and inspire attacks on U.S. soil,” Pfluger told The Daily Signal. “My Generative AI Terrorism Risk Assessment Act is critical to counter these terror threats posed by this online radicalization, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.”

The Generative AI Terrorism Risk Assessment Act calls for an annual report no later than one year after the legislation is enacted about AI terrorist threats faced by the U.S. over the previous calendar year “and annually thereafter for five years” by the Department of Homeland Security.

Pfluger’s legislation comes after chilling reporting by The Daily Signal’s Virginia Allen about ISIS-affiliated networks using generative AI to boost their recruiting efforts. Allen reports that among the technologies being used to spread and facilitate terrorism are video gaming where individuals in diaspora communities are targeted for recruitment and cryptocurrency, which offers more privacy in funding efforts.

The Generative AI Terrorism Risk Assessment Act would direct the Secretary of Homeland Security “in consultation with the Director of National Intelligence” to “submit to the appropriate congressional committees an assessment of terrorism threats to the United States posed by the use of generative artificial intelligence for terrorism.” The Homeland Security secretary would also personally brief the appropriate congressional committees on the threat assessment reports after they were submitted each year. 

The legislation mandates reporting on the incidents of AI being used or attempting to be utilized to spread “violent extremist messaging and facilitate the ability to radicalize and recruit individuals to violence” or “to develop or deploy chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons.” It also would mandate recommendations from the department about what the U.S. could do to oppose the terrorists engaging in this behavior.

When it comes to AI generated content, Allen’s reporting cites Mohammad Taha Ali, a postgraduate student from Jamia Millia Islamia, writing in a recent report for the Middle East Forum that “The goal is not just recruitment; it is to exhaust the algorithmic defenses of major social platforms and dominate online discourse.”

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