To the Editor:

One exchange stood out in the Senate debate this week between Ed Markey and Seth Moulton.

Asked about AI regulation, Markey argued we don’t need to distinguish between different kinds of AI, the Senator just waved his hands, looked flustered and noted we should just regulate “AI” as a category. When pressed on which AI systems he actually uses, he couldn’t name one beyond whatever comes preloaded on his iPhone and iPad. He couldn’t distinguish between ChatGPT and Siri.

That’s not a small gap in knowledge. It’s disqualifying for someone asking voters to trust him with AI policy for the next six years.

AI is not one thing. The software reading a dental X-ray, the tool doing a firm’s books, and the app transcribing a doctor’s notes all pose different risks and need different rules. Regulate them identically and you either write something so vague it does nothing, or so broad it outlaws tools that are already making medicine, accounting and countless other fields safer and more efficient. Getting this right requires actually understanding the technology not lumping it all together because Senator Markey has no capacity to understand the details.

Markey is 80 years old. He is very unlikely to be around to answer for the consequences of AI legislation written this carelessly. The rest of us will be. Massachusetts deserves a senator who can tell the difference between a chatbot and a diagnostic algorithm before he casts a vote regulating both.

Michele Pfannenstiel
Newtonville