On Wednesday, US Senators played host to nearly two dozen tech industry titans in a closed-door session in Washington, DC, discussing the future of AI. But despite the power vested in all those members of Congress, the senators were the ones who had to dutifully defer to their guests. Wired reports that the over 60 senators “sat like school children,” forbidden from speaking or raising their hands. And to be fair, the intent of the forum was to be educational — but you’d be right to question the authority of a teacher who doesn’t let their pupils ask questions. Given the guests in attendance, their compliance may as well have been peremptory. Notables included Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. You don’t need to do the exact math to know that their combined net worths rival that of a small, disproportionately wealthy nation. Not all were on board with being on the receiving end of a schooling. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) complained that the private nature of the meeting and the lack of input from senators was counterproductive to actual lawmaking, and stifled the chance for cooperation. “There’s no feeling in the room,” Warren told Wired. “Closed-door [sessions] for tech giants to come in and talk to senators and answer no tough questions is a terrible precedent for trying to develop any kind of legislation.”…Tech Bros Lectured Congress About AI "Like Schoolchildren" Who Weren't Allowed to Raise Hands