Senators wouldn’t commit Thursday to supporting possible legislation that would ban artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that could someday surpass human intelligence and act independently.
Tech engineers and prominent AI researchers resigned from major labs and warned that AI development must be slowed to prevent the technology from killing humanity. Senators wouldn’t commit to banning AI superintelligence outright when asked by the Daily Caller News Foundation despite the warnings from researchers and prominent Big Tech CEOs.
Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said he would not support a ban if it came to the floor despite introducing an AI “kill switch” bill Wednesday.
“No, I’m not going to support that right now,” Kennedy told the DCNF. “I’ll support a light touch system of rules that we all agree to, and hopefully China does too, and that looks like somebody designed them on purpose. I don’t support what Senator Sanders wants to do. What Bernie wants to do is basically put AI on hold until the politicians can figure out a way to get control of it. I don’t agree with that approach.”
The idea for the hypothetical legislation was similar to independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ and Democratic Texas Rep. Greg Casar’s bill that would ban AI superintelligence that could “surpass human intelligence or have the capacity to overthrow human governments.” The Democrats’ bill would impose a pause on advanced AI development until a cabinet-level federal agency was established to “safeguard the public from the dangers” of AI.
Sanders’ office did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Republican Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett told the DCNF and others that many lawmakers did not understand AI and needed to discuss the matter with AI experts before passing any legislation.
Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott told the DCNF that such a ban could never pass because the chamber was incapable of getting anything done. He stated that AI developers had a “responsibility” to ensure that children and families were protected.
“My expectation is that the builders of the AI have a responsibility to protect our kids and protect our families,” Scott told the DCNF. “We can’t pass a bill up here. We can’t pass election security. We can’t pass a budget. You think we’re going to pass some bill that’s going to control AI? That’s a joke.”
Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said concerns about superintelligence were warranted but he did not commit to supporting legislation to ban the tech outright, instead proposing to the DCNF that the tech companies be held liable for actions of their AI agents.
“I do think we need to be really worried about superintelligence, and you know that’s, I think, part of what these AI executives have been talking about,” Hawley told the DCNF. “Now I have to say that, as I understand these AI executives the last week, it said, ‘Oh boy, we’re really on the cusp of something dangerous, and our bots are doing bad things.’ Therefore, we’d like to be rewarded with an antitrust exemption, with which I think is absolutely absurd. I think what we ought to do instead of an antitrust exemption is, I think, we ought to assign legal liability to the companies for the actions of their AI agents.”
“I think OpenAI ought to be liable. And if you allow a jury to assign economic damages and punitive damages for that kind of behavior, and you allow it to be enforced by private actors as well as the government, I think that would help assign incentives in the right way,” Hawley continued.
Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden stated that he believed criminalizing companies that harm Americans’ safety and health is a “critical step.” He did not directly answer whether he would support a ban on AI acting outside of human control specifically. “Tough criminal law would be a smart step,” Wyden told the DCNF.
Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy did not seem to understand how AI could potentially act outside of human control, arguing that “all technology operates outside of human control.”
Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul blocked Kennedy’s attempt to pass the “kill switch” bill without holding a formal vote, which required just one senator’s objection.
Paul stated Congress needed more facts on AI before enacting several regulations on the industry. He told the DCNF and others Thursday that he opposed regulating the entire AI industry without a full debate between activists and opponents.
“I think it would be crazy to go to the floor one day and regulate an entire industry future without a debate,” Paul said.
Kennedy told the DCNF the bill could be brought to the floor for a formal voting process, but that it likely would not go anywhere.
AI superintelligence is a hypothetical computer-based system that would be smarter than humans; it would exceed human cognitive ability in math, science, creativity and general wisdom. An advanced system could rewrite its own code to become smarter and surpass human capabilities.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in an online essay Saturday that the risks associated with AI were “serious” and could outrun humans’ ability to understand or control what they were creating. Jacob Coxon, a former researcher at Anthropic, said people working at AI companies were “genuinely frightened “about the “fate of humanity in the next two years.”
President Donald Trump called concerns about AI a “sick conspiracy” and argued placing guardrails on the technology could cause the U.S. to fall behind China. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker Mike Johnson and other lawmakers argued Congress should place some guardrails on AI without hurting innovation.
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