Sen. Mark Warner says the world needs a ‘Geneva Convention’ for using AI in warfare

As artificial intelligence transforms national security needs and energy consumption, one federal legislator says he’s vying to get regulation done correctly. In his view, this policymaking hasn’t followed a clear or easy path. 

“From a policy standpoint,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, “we are scrambling to try to get this one right.”

Warner highlighted bipartisan AI bills, as well as foreign interference as the upcoming election looms and the strain from Data Center Alley, on Friday morning at an AI-focused summit hosted by Virginia Tech. During that convening, AI leaders throughout the public and private sectors discussed workforce needs and building trust in panels and keynotes. 

The lawmaker’s work on these issues draws on his decades embedded in the tech world before entering electoral politics.

Warner started working in the wireless industry in the 80s and invested in the cellular service provider Nextel in its early years. He then went on to found and lead the venture capital firm Columbia Capital before running for governor of Virginia. He started his gubernatorial term in 2002, serving in Richmond for four years, and later became one of Virginia’s two US Senators in 2009. 

AI is moving at a much greater pace than his experience in wireless, he noted, and wasn’t hesitant to point to the emerging tech’s negatives. 

One example he cited was the power consumption of data centers in Virginia, which require monumental amounts of electricity. The ongoing popularity of generative artificial intelligence factors into this demand: A ChatGPT query requires 10 times as much energy as a Google search, per the Electric Power Research Institute. 

“We, for better or for worse, are the data center capital of the world,” Warner told the crowd. “We’re already well positioned to be that place. But how do we generate the power?”

Wind and solar are not the answer, he said, and nuclear needs to be considered. 

“Virginia’s better positioned,” he said, “to be the nation’s leader on nuclear power.”

In an exclusive one-on-one interview following these remarks, the senator and Senate Intelligence Committee delved further into the demands of data centers, workforce changes and how AI is shifting industries in Virginia. 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

As Virginia grows as a technical hub, especially for cybersecurity jobs, how are you looking at keeping up with those demands, and balancing that with the possibility of AI taking jobs? 

This is a great question. We’re still 10s of 1000s of trained people short in cyber. It almost feels like we go in these waves — whatever happens to be the hottest field. Cyber was definitely that 10 years ago. We still need these across the private sector and the government enterprise. 

AI is now the hottest area. I think we’re still trying to sort through what that AI workforce is going to look like. 

We know, at the very high end, computer science. But is there going to be the equivalent? Because in cyber there are jobs that you can get here in two years of community college. What is going to be the equivalent of an AI job that only requires a couple years? I think we’re still trying to sort that out. 

What’s that whole AI workforce look like? I don’t think we know yet.

How do the US and Virginia maintain a competitive edge in AI development but, at the same time, balance ethics and responsibilities? 

I put it into a couple of brands. 

One, we’re already, for good and bad, the data center capital of the world. Data centers are still going to be an important part of that. 

That’s why I mentioned the need for power. Power is going to be a huge component. I think advanced nuclear power, which is both carbon-free and safe, if Virginia could be the lead in that, that would be hugely important.

We need the consortium of our universities. We’ve got that in Virginia. We always take advantage [of] Northern Virginia’s being close to the federal government. We have most of the intelligence community here — all in the area, but disproportionately in Virginia. 

The intel world is going to use AI enormously. That’s a huge job and economic development opportunity.

You touched on this in your speech, but can you talk more specifically about your plans to ensure national security as AI ramps up? 

We have to be careful. We really have to test these models, since we still have hallucinations. 

I use the example of the drone swarm that has no human intervention. Things go wrong, that has real life implications. So I think we have to think that through. We need some kind of the equivalent of a Geneva Convention: a modern Geneva Convention around AI uses in warfare. 

I also think we’ve got this national, real time issue of how we safely export our technology to countries like nation states in the Middle East. If they move away from China and Russia, and they want to be more firmly aligned with us because we’ve got the best technology: How do we do that in a safe way? I’m deeply involved in that [in] real time.

How is AI changing key industries in Virginia specifically, like cybersecurity?

AI is clearly going to eliminate a number of jobs. The most obvious are things like call center jobs. 

How do we make sure the nation, that’s $36 trillion in debt, that some of those savings that come from job elimination actually are used towards dealing with our national debt? 

But also, I think we’re going to need almost a new social contract so that those savings aren’t all just recouped by the AI, big, giant platforms. But some of those savings need to go back to the retraining of the workforce of jobs that are going to be dislocated. 

We’ve never done that very well in the past. There’s such focus on AI right now. Having some responsibility that there’s some reinvestment made in those workers, I think it’s a real opportunity.