The House is scheduled to be sent home in the coming days until after November's midterm elections, leaving a narrow window to pass any form of AI regulation.
Washington is scrambling to address renewed fears over artificial intelligence , as leading U.S. companies sound the alarm over technology they say is advancing beyond their control.
"Dr. Frankenstein is telling us the monster is escaping; help us stop this," said Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. "The method that we're answering [with] is not meeting the moment."
The push for action on AI safeguards comes after a researcher resigned from Anthropic and warned that the technology could "kill us all by the end of the decade." Stunning pledges to slow development from the leaders of top AI frontier companies Anthropic , OpenAI and xAI followed the warning, and calls for lawmakers to act toward regulating the industry came soon after.
"Yesterday's commentary by AI industry leaders should be heeded as a bright flashing red light telling the President and Congress they need to act now to regulate and rein in AI development," Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a post on X on Sunday. "This technology is powerful, with great potential to do good, and yet it comes with extraordinary risk. It's not clear where it will lead but this much is clear: its development should not be steered exclusively by private entities, especially when the CEOs of those companies are calling out for restraint and regulation."
The events have left Washington, which has done little to regulate AI since the technology emerged, with its back against the wall as the rapidly growing industry looks increasingly dangerous. Lawmakers now must grapple with how to rein in AI as an all-important midterm election looms and Congress prepares to leave town for another month to hit the campaign trail.
The episode sets up a test of whether lawmakers will respond to a crisis barreling toward them in a hyper-partisan Washington or head home to make their case for reelection with control of Washington on the line.
On Friday, a group of Democrats led by Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-Calif., wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson , R-La., demanding to stay in session until it passes meaningful safeguards.
Johnson is scheduled to send the House home after this week until November's elections have passed.
"The House should return to Washington immediately and remain in session until Congress advances meaningful, bipartisan AI safeguards," the letter, obtained by CNBC, read. "To our children who will have read a post-apocalyptic history, 'Why Congress Slept' - likely written by agentic AI - our inaction will be inexplicable, and unforgivable."
The Democrats urged consideration of any number of proposals that have emerged in the House that "deserve consideration, public debate, thoughtful amendment, and action." That includes bills mandating transparency and evaluation of frontier models, "kill switch" requirements and a waiver of antitrust laws to allow the industry to work together on safety and security.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday said on ABC's "This Week" that Democrats would meet on Tuesday to discuss AI guardrails.
"We should take decisive action now so that we can slow down, as the CEOs have recently acknowledged, slow down the pace of development in order to protect the American people and ensure that AI is proceeding safely," he said.
Johnson, however, appeared to rule out that Congress would quickly act on any of those priorities or stay in session beyond next week during an appearance on CNN Sunday.
"If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China, that is a threat to every single American," Johnson said. "We don't need everybody to panic right now, we need to handle this new technology like we have others in the past, and make sure we're doing everything we can responsibly to also not smother American innovation."
Johnson called for a meeting between leaders in Washington and the leaders of the AI industry to settle on a path forward, while also calling on the companies themselves to self-police.
Reporting synthesized and verified under Nexvoro.tech editorial guidelines. Full primary records referenced via CNBC Top News.
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