WASHINGTON — Amid warnings that artificial intelligence could soon wipe out humanity, some lawmakers aren’t convinced Congress has the expertise or capacity to regulate AI.
“A lot of them don’t know how to spell it,” joked Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. “They just don’t have the experience.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., was also skeptical. “They still don’t know how to access the Internet,” let alone understand AI, he said.
Rep. Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, who represents parts of Silicon Valley, argued that many members of Congress simply aren’t aware of AI and some don’t seem interested.
“The problem in Congress is not that we don’t have enough computer scientists. It’s that we don’t have enough people who have a basic understanding of how technology works or who use it,” Khanna said in an interview with NBC News.
“It’s like talking about establishing rules of conduct on the road. You don’t have to be a car mechanic, but it would be nice if you were at least a passenger in a car or had driven a car,” he continued. “And we’ve had a lot of members of Congress who haven’t been passengers in a car when it comes to AI, or certainly haven’t driven it.”
One thing everyone seems to agree on: Congress is no closer to regulating AI. Capitol Hill has been notoriously slow to regulate new technologies. It has failed to pass any sweeping, comprehensive legislation regulating the Internet that was invented more than 40 years ago, instead taking a more piecemeal approach and relying on existing laws. And exactly 20 years after Facebook became publicly available, lawmakers are still struggling to figure out how to regulate social media.
New rules aimed at protecting children online are popular in theory, but current legislation remains stalled, with House and Senate negotiators deadlocked on the issue.
“You’re talking about the United States Congress. I mean, nothing moves very quickly,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, a former astronaut and Navy combat pilot who supports AI regulation.
It is “much easier” to fly a fighter jet than to pass AI legislation, he added.
But even though many skeptics believe Congress lacks the capacity to tackle AI regulation, some optimists believe it does.
One of them is Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., who is pursuing a master’s degree in machine learning at George Mason University to keep pace with new technologies. Beyer served on the bipartisan House task force on artificial intelligence and now serves on a Democratic commission on AI.
“Oh, I definitely think there’s capacity here. Yes, you don’t have to be a PhD or a master’s in computer science to know what to do next,” said Beyer, 76. “I think the parallel is that we don’t need to be biologists or chemists to create the FDA, or lawyers or stockbrokers to create the SEC. There are already 12 to 20 members of Congress, in the House alone, who have the AI bills.”
What is blocking any meaningful legislative movement on AI is the political will of Republicans, he argued.
“I think we certainly have the capacity. What we need is a speaker who will allow us to introduce the bills,” said Beyer, who has advocated for Democratic leaders to create a select committee on artificial intelligence if the party takes control of the House this fall.
Democrats, a handful of Republicans and key technology leaders say Congress must step in now and regulate the AI industry in the wake of high-profile AI breaches.
“AI is certainly powerful enough to cause events that … cause a billion deaths,” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said in an interview with Kristen Welker that will air Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
“No one thinks self-regulation is enough,” he added.
President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will host an AI summit with technology executives in Washington on Tuesday, according to a White House official and a source familiar with the matter. But, given their past comments, it is likely that the focus will be more on technological innovation and competition than on corporate control.
Trump has repeatedly said he does not want to “stifle the growth of something that would be bigger than the industrial revolution,” as he said in a speech to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly this week.
“We’re going to encourage it, not hinder it,” Trump said.
He also called recent doomsday warnings a “hoax” and said the regulations would hinder America in its race for AI dominance with China. Johnson said security guardrails were needed, but argued that Congress should not hinder American innovation.
At a recent campaign rally, Senator Jon Ossoff, Democrat of Georgia, who is running in one of the most competitive Senate races in November and is mentioned as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, blamed Trump and the “weakness of our politics” for Congress’ inaction on AI.
“Tech titans are digging bunkers while warning us that the new information they are creating risks human extinction. Congress is debating youth sports and the president is building a ballroom,” Ossoff said. “An old establishment, barely able to communicate by email, is descending into a technological revolution, while the president dismantles precautions and calls us fools for worrying. »
The House took a big step forward on AI in 2024, with a bipartisan working group that held two dozen hearings and produced a 273-page report on a framework for possible AI legislation, with nearly 90 recommendations.
Many of those recommendations have been translated into bills that are now being considered by committees and subcommittees, said Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., who chaired the task force and has a master’s degree in AI from UCLA. One such measure is the Frontier Act, his bipartisan bill with Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., that would create national security rules for the construction and use of advanced AI models.
“Would I prefer the process to go faster? Yes, absolutely,” Obernolte said. “Did this move as quickly as possible, given the constraints everyone was under? Yes, I believe it did.”
Obernolte said the bipartisan AI task force was not renewed this Congress because it released its report and fulfilled its mission. But he said it has created a group of AI experts on Capitol Hill that other lawmakers can lean on and ask questions.
The task force, he said, started with members who knew nothing about AI and are now “deeply knowledgeable” on the issue.
Asked if he was confident that Congress could rise to the occasion and pass something on AI, Obernolte said: “There’s too much confidence, but you have to hope. »
Senator Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, was more pessimistic, pointing out that the Senate failed this month to pass a landmark cryptocurrency bill despite years of bipartisan work, and that developments in AI appear to be moving at breakneck speed.
“This legislation process is taking so long that by the time we got to this stage — I mean, crypto, we’re four years in. We haven’t passed it,” Moreno said. “So imagine AI in four years. We’re dealing with things that won’t even be relevant in four years.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who serves on the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, said he doesn’t think most members of Congress have the expertise to understand all the complexities of AI, but that they also shouldn’t focus on regulating every aspect of the technology.
Instead, he said, lawmakers should focus on passing laws, like the AI LEAD Act, that would hold tech companies legally responsible for any harm caused by AI.
“Expertise? No, but we… don’t need to make careful regulations. What we should do, for example, is open the courthouse doors so that citizens who are harmed by AI, and who, when AI agents go out and crash the banking system or commit cyberattacks or hack data, corporations are responsible for that,” Hawley said.
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