For KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument, and this is Economics IE.
Last week, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff visited San Bernardino Valley College to speak with students and tour a future housing project. Afterwards, Schiff joined me in the KVCR studios at the college to discuss issues important to Californians, including the future of AI and agriculture. Here’s part of our conversation.
Madison Aument:You and South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds, who’s a Republican, are pursuing a bipartisan AI bill to allocate resources for students to learn about AI. I’m curious why.
Sen. Adam Schiff:Well, I think it’s going to be vitally important that, as young people graduate, they have a working knowledge of AI. They need to know how to benefit from it and use it. I think that’s going to be an essential skill in the workplace.
We’re already seeing AI affect college graduates who had been majoring in software engineering, work that can now largely be done by AI. So we have to pivot to those areas where the job market is still going to be strong.
It’s an incredibly valuable tool. In areas like health care, for example, I think we’re going to see dramatic increases in cures, and we’re going to accelerate the ability to do clinical trials and narrow candidate lists down to those likely to be more successful. So on the positive side, there are real benefits.
But on the negative side, it’s going to be hugely disruptive to the workforce. What I’m working on with Senator Rounds and others are efforts to help educate our workforce and our students on AI and prepare for it, as well as educate educators on how to teach using AI.
Madison Aument:What kinds of jobs are you hoping students can prepare for with AI when we’re still kind of trying to figure out what AI means for the workforce?
Sen. Adam Schiff:I think AI is going to be diffused throughout our economy. So it’s not necessarily about going to work for an AI company. It’s also about whatever field you go into and how you use AI to be better at that work.
If you’re a lawyer, how do you use AI to do legal research? If you’re in health care, how do you use AI to more accurately diagnose a patient? There are going to be innumerable uses for it, and those in the workforce using that tool are likely to have better success and advancement than those who are not comfortable with it or able to use it.
So I think whatever young people want to pursue in terms of their career, AI will be a useful technology to have. This isn’t an effort to get students to pursue only one thing. I think young people should pursue what they have a passion for and what they’d love to do, and then figure out how to use AI to do it even better.
Madison Aument:You are on the Agriculture Committee. Like you said, California produces much of this country’s agriculture, and the House just moved the farm bill to the Senate. What do you want to see in the Senate version of the bill?
Sen. Adam Schiff:I’ll tell you what I want to see and what I don’t want to see.
In the category of what I do want to see, I want to see some of those SNAP benefits restored that were cut in the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” There’s been a historic agreement between rural, urban, and suburban areas where rural areas would get the farm support they wanted and urban areas would get the food support they wanted.
When they cut the food support in the president’s bill, they broke that agreement between rural and urban areas. We need to restore that SNAP funding — that food assistance funding — to have a successful farm bill.
I also want to see more research, funding, and support for what are called specialty crops. In California, we grow fruit, nuts, and a lot of produce that the rest of the country doesn’t. Most of the benefits in the farm bill go to what are called row crops in the Midwest — grains and similar crops. The bill often doesn’t help California very much. So I want to see specialty crop farmers get equal treatment with farmers in the Midwest.
What I don’t want to see is a provision in the bill that came over from the House that would preempt a California law passed by ballot measure called Proposition 12, which provides humane conditions for farm animals. This was important to California voters. They passed it with, I think, 63% support.
We have built that into how we farm in California so we have more humane conditions for farm animals, and animal welfare is very important to Californians. States that don’t use those practices are trying to stop California from doing so. That provision is in the bill now, and I’m working hard to take it out.
Madison Aument:That was the U.S. Senator for California Adam Schiff. You can find this segment on our new website, KVCR.org.
This segment is supported by the Nowak family. For KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument.
