More than 20 members of Congress have called for new or tougher artificial intelligence regulation this week, according to CNBC, after a researcher’s public warning that leading AI labs are “gambling with our lives” set off a political firestorm in Washington.
Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday that bipartisan interest in the issue has reached what she described as a tipping point. “My phone has rung off the hook this week with rank-and-file Democrats and Republicans who want to see action,” Trahan said.
The catalyst was Jacob Coxon, who announced Tuesday that he had quit his job at Anthropic in a post that has since drawn more than 150 million views on X. Coxon, who previously worked as a researcher at OpenAI, wrote that the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
Lawmakers on both sides weigh in
His resignation quickly drew responses from lawmakers in both parties. Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, wrote on X on Wednesday that AI is a powerful engine of innovation that needs room to flourish, but argued Congress cannot ignore the technology’s potential risks. “Innovation and safety are not mutually exclusive,” Moran wrote, adding that both could be achieved through deliberate and prudent policymaking.
The political pressure has been building for months ahead of November’s midterm elections, particularly among voters who associate AI with job losses and sprawling data centers. According to an August report from the Pew Research Center, 52% of Americans say they are more concerned than excited about the growing use of AI in daily life, up from 37% in 2021. Pew’s American Trends Panel survey of 3,488 adults was conducted from June 22-28 and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.
Even so, there is little agreement in Washington on how the technology should be regulated. Lawmakers have introduced a handful of AI bills, but they remain in early stages and have drawn mixed receptions.
In July, Trahan and Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., introduced the Frontier Act, which aims to establish a framework for governing the deployment of advanced AI models. The same day, Moran and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., introduced the AI Kill Switch Act, which would require AI companies to maintain the ability to shut down, throttle or suspend their models. Earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, announced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, which would temporarily pause advanced AI development until the federal government establishes safety rules.
“Mr. Coxon is right,” Sanders wrote Wednesday on X, adding that the people building the technology admit it could threaten humanity’s future and that he would soon introduce legislation to ban superintelligence and pause AI development.
A narrow window for legislation
Both chambers of Congress are largely out of session until the midterms, making near-term passage of any AI legislation unlikely. Some lawmakers are already looking to next year.
Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., sent a letter Wednesday to Senate leadership following Coxon’s resignation, urging Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to create a bipartisan Senate Select Committee on AI at the start of the next Congress. Gallego wrote that jurisdiction over AI is scattered across multiple committees, each with a focused lens but none with the full picture, an approach he said is poorly matched to a technology whose capabilities change measurably every few months.
The White House has also moved on the issue. President Donald Trump signed an AI executive order in early June that was light on details, asking AI developers to voluntarily submit their models to the government for capability assessments before full release. The administration has not published the framework it is using to implement the order. On Thursday, Trump dismissed concerns about AI posing an extinction risk, telling reporters that “if we don’t win AI, we’re going to be put in a very bad position.”
OpenAI and Anthropic have kept a steady presence in Washington this year, publishing policy recommendations and advocating for a federal framework while also weighing in on some state-level proposals. Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s global affairs chief and a longtime political operative, wrote in a Wednesday blog post that the company supports “mandatory, capability-based national regulation.”
“The AI policy window is open, for now,” Lehane wrote. “We intend to use it.”
Source: www.cnbc.com — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/11/ai-regulation-anthropic-researcher-extinction-warning.html
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