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Gov. Josh Shapiro called for federal and international action to slow down and responsibly govern the development of artificial intelligence during a keynote speech at the AI Horizons Summit in Pittsburgh Thursday.
Shapiro noted the concerns raised earlier this month by tech leaders who called for a slowdown in AI development and said the potential harm from rogue AI demands the government take a role in regulating the industry.
"We don't let pharmaceutical companies develop drugs and put them right out in the market. No, they must first go through the (Food and Drug Administration) to prove that they are safe and effective," Shapiro said. "And we don't let aircraft manufacturers make an airplane and then just put commercial passengers on it right off the assembly line. No, the [Federal Aviation Administration] sets strict standards that must be met before that first flight.
I believe AI should not be treated any differently, particularly because it has the power to impact people's lives in such dramatic ways."
Shapiro said the federal government needs to enact "strict rules of the road" for AI and require independent third-party monitoring and increased transparency over the development of frontier AI models.
Earlier this month, a researcher at AI developer Anthropic resigned and released a public statement saying the company and its rival OpenAI "are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives."
Both tech companies have acknowledged their models had broken out of testing environments and obtained unauthorized access to real computer systems.
Executives at Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI, and OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, have since expressed publicly that AI development needs to be reined in to ensure that the technology is safe.
Despite those comments, President Donald Trump has pushed back on calls for tighter regulation of the industry, calling claims about the danger of AI a "hoax."
Shapiro has welcomed tech investment in the state while also backing what he has described as the most restrictive data center ground rules in the country. Those include barring any projects that lack approval from local community officials and requiring that data center developers bring their own power and water or fully cover the cost of their water and electric use.
"It's a false choice to say that our only two options in America are to do what Donald Trump is saying, that we should ignore the risks and go full steam ahead.
Or, on the other hand, to completely stop work on AI development indefinitely," Shapiro said. "There is a better, more thoughtful way, and that is what we have to collectively work toward."