Wednesday, during an appearance on FBN’s “The Evening Edit,” Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) downplayed the panic associated with artificial intelligence (AI) that is dominating the news cycle.

The Tennessee Republican likened it to past scares and warned that China could gain an advantage over the United States in the realm of AI.

“Let’s welcome in House Homeland Security Cyber Subcommittee Chairman, Andy Ogles,” FBN host Ashley Webster said. “Andy, listen. We’ve heard all of those soundbites. Are Zuckerberg, Palantir and NVIDIA right? That we don’t need heavy-handed government interference?”

Ogles replied, “Absolutely, they’re correct. I mean, look, they tried to scare us with global warming and the killer bees, as was said before, but what you see is there is this cohort in California that are liberal, and this is the pursuit for power. They want control because, currently it is somewhat of an unregulated space. But look, as Chairman of Cyber, AI and Infrastructure Protection, we’ve been on the tip of the spear of this conversation. We’ve had hearings, we’ve had roundtables, we have open dialogues with these companies, creating this back-and-forth, essentially a public-private partnership.”

“The White House is doing the same, and so you know Ronald Reagan probably said it best when he said, ‘You know, the scariest phrase in the American language is ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help,”” he continued. “So if Congress acts, it will tend to overreact and stifle innovation. And everybody needs to understand there’s a race to quantum computing. What is quantum computing? In seconds, it could unlock your bank account. In seconds, it will know everything about you. And China is trying to use AI to beat us in the quantum race, and if they get there first, it is a winner-take-all race. This is the nuclear race all over again, and the stakes are higher. We must win this, and we must not stifle innovation.”

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