Reps. French Hill, R-Ark., and Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., who serve as chair and ranking member of the Digital Assets Subcommittee, respectively, will lead the working group, according to the news release.
"As AI rapidly advances, it is important that we examine its use, need for potential changes in U.S. laws and/or the regulatory framework for both effective oversight, and ensuring global competitiveness," Hill said in the news release.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have been critical of the SEC's rule proposal on AI, introduced in July, which would require investment advisers and broker-dealers to "eliminate or neutralize" conflicts of interest in investor interactions that use certain technologies, including AI. Many industry groups have asked the SEC to withdraw the proposal altogether, as they said it would stifle the use of technology in financial services.
In its annual report, released in December, the Financial Stability Oversight Council identified artificial intelligence as a vulnerability in the U.S. financial system for the first time. This comes after President Joe Biden issued an executive order on AI in late October, which, among other things, directs the Secretary of the Treasury to issue a report outlining the best practices for financial institutions to manage AI-related cybersecurity risks.
The working group "will serve as a forum to examine the directives from the executive order related to the committee's jurisdiction," according to the news release.
The House Financial Services Committee first launched a task force on AI in 2019 under the leadership of Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who now serves as the committee's ranking member.
Waters said in the news release that she has "long called on both this committee and Congress to move quickly to investigate the ways in which (AI) may embed historic inequities in the financial services and housing markets through the use of data that reflect underlying bias or discrimination."
