Ocasio-Cortez Highlights Economic Threat from AI Bubble

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Washington, D.C.- Today, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)highlighted the psychological and economic dangers of Artificial Intelligence during a hearing in the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Find Representative Ocasio-Cortez's remarks as delivered below:

"Thank you, Mr.Chairman, and I'd like to thank the subcommittee for holding this important hearing and the witnesses for offering their expertise.

Many of the stories that we've heard today about the deadly consequences of some of these AI chat bots are pretty extreme and horrifying. We're talking about suicidality. We are talking about people entering AI psychosis in some circumstances.

And I think it's important for us to take a step back as to why and what is driving the openness to these models, allowing this to occur in the first place.

And I want to also shed light on what that means about an economic story about AI in addition to a psychological story about it.

Dr. King, have you seen companies change or evolve their privacy policies or other kinds of policies as they seek greater profitability models?

Certainly, we've seen them change their privacy policies as they rolled out AI products.

Yes. And I imagine some of this has to do with their business model, correct?

Yes.

And I think this when we talk about why AI models are going to such extremes and some of the extreme outcomes that we are seeing in terms of how people are using AI, in terms of emotional companionship to, again, extreme cases of suicidality or psychosis.

This also, I think, tracks with the pressure that these companies have to turn a profit that they have not yet proven.

Just this morning, the Wall Street Journal reported a significant drop in the U.S. stock market with the headline 'AI bubble Fears Hit Stocks.'

Now, this also contrasts with what we've been hearing from the Trump Administration - that the economy in general is thriving. And he's been saying that the economy is booming.

But it's only seven tech companies that are booming - Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta - and they're driving this growth in just one sector: AI.

So the entire U.S. economy growth can be tracked down to seven companies and their AI growth, specifically. At least 40% of economic growth this year is attributed to these companies alone, and 80% of stock gains this year came from AI companies.

But people are justifying these levels of investment because of the promises that the CEOs make, that there will be a return on that investment.

So for a company like OpenAI, their value is based on the expectation that they're going to figure out how to make a profit out of it. And they haven't.

And so generating this increased human dependency that can be mined

because it's not subject to HIPAA. Is that correct, Dr. King?

Right. It's not subject to HIPAA.

It's not subject to HIPAA. So people's deepest fears, secrets, emotional content, relationships can all be mined for this empty promise that we're getting from these companies to turn a profit.

And the reason I bring all of this up is because the exposure of this industry and this investment, I fear, has reached broad levels, potentially, of the American economy.

We're talking about 40% of stock growth in the United States being attributed to these companies in the AI sector alone. And that sector has not turned a profit.

We're talking about a massive economic bubble. And we've seen the - depending on the exposure of that bubble, we could see 2008 style threats to economic stability.

And that pressure is reflected on the extreme lengths that these companies are going to to allow unethical human interactions with these chat bots.

I say this because I want to say also on the record that should this bubble pop, and I say this for my colleagues here, should this bubble pop.

My colleague from Massachusetts mentioned the level of AI lobbying that occurs here in Congress.

Should this bubble pop, we should not be entertaining a bailout.

We should not entertain a bailout of these corporations, as health care is being denied to everyday Americans, as SNAP and food assistance is being denied to everyday Americans, precipitating some of the very mental crises that people are turning to AI chat bots to try to resolve in themselves.

So I think it's very important that we get on the record and state that. And, I'd like to thank the witnesses for offering their insight today.

Thank you. "

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