AI regulation calls grow in D.C. after researcher’s extinction warning

More than 20 members of Congress have called for stronger artificial intelligence regulation this week after a researcher warned that Anthropic and OpenAI are “gambling with our lives.”

Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday that bipartisan support has reached “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.

Jacob Coxon announced he quit his job at Anthropic on Tuesday in a post that has garnered 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.”

Coxon’s decision to quit set off a firestorm on social media, prompting lawmakers across both sides of the political aisle to weigh in.

“AI is a powerful engine of innovation, and we need it to flourish. But, Congress cannot ignore the realities of AI and the potential risks that come with it,” Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, wrote in a post on X on Wednesday. “Innovation and safety are not mutually exclusive. We can achieve both through deliberate, thoughtful, and prudent policymaking.”

Backlash against AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic has mounted in the months leading up to November’s midterm elections, especially among people who have come to associate AI with job loss and large data centers. More than half of Americans say they’re more concerned than excited about the growing use of AI in daily life, up from 37% in 2021, according to an August report from the Pew Research Center.

But despite the public’s growing unease, there’s little consensus about how the technology should be regulated in the U.S. Lawmakers have introduced several different AI bills, but they’re in early stages and have been met with mixed reception.

“It’s past time for Congress to get off the sidelines and act,” Trahan told CNBC on Friday.

In July, Trahan and Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., introduced a bill called the FRONTIER Act, which aims to establish a framework for governing the deployment of advanced AI models. That same day, Moran and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., introduced a bill called the “AI Kill Switch Act,” which would require AI companies to maintain the ability to shut down, throttle or suspend their models.

And earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, announced legislation called 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 in a post on X on Wednesday. “The very people building this technology admit that it could threaten the future of humanity. That is why I will soon be introducing legislation to ban superintelligence and pause AI development.”

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are mostly out of session until the midterms, which means there’s a slim chance that any AI legislation will be passed in the near future. Some lawmakers are already looking ahead to next year.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., wrote a letter to Senate leadership on Wednesday following Coxon’s resignation. He urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to establish a bipartisan Senate Select Committee on AI at the start of the next Congress.

“Jurisdiction over AI is scattered across multiple Senate committees, each with a focused lens but none with the full picture,” Gallego wrote. “This approach is poorly matched to a technology whose capabilities are measurably different every few months.”

The White House has also taken steps toward AI oversight as President Donald Trump signed an AI executive order in early June.

The order, which was light on specific details, asked AI developers to voluntarily submit their models to the government to assess their capabilities ahead of a full release. The administration has not published the framework that it is using to implement that order.

Trump dismissed concerns about AI’s potential to cause human extinction on Thursday, telling reporters that “if we don’t win AI, we’re going to be put in a very bad position.”

OpenAI and Anthropic have maintained a regular presence in Washington, D.C., this year, and both companies have published several policy recommendations. The companies are proponents of a federal framework, but they have also weighed in on some state-level proposals.

Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s global affairs chief and a longtime political operative, published a blog post on Wednesday calling for “mandatory, capability-based national regulation.”

“The AI policy window is open, for now,” Lehane wrote. “We intend to use it.”

WATCH: Anthropic researcher warns AI ‘could kill us all by the end of the decade’