Congress
Trump’s AI ignorance is ‘truly embarrassing,’ Bernie Sanders says
Sen. Bernie Sanders decried Washington on Tuesday for failing to regulate artificial intelligence, including the advanced models that AI researchers, tech executives and safety advocates warn pose an existential risk to humanity.
“Congress under both Democratic and Republican control has been asleep at the wheel,” the Vermont independent said at the Pro-Human Assembly in D.C. “And we now have a president whose ignorance regarding this issue is truly embarrassing.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly brushed aside concerns of catastrophic risks from AI, saying the U.S. should instead focus on maintaining its competitive edge over China. On Monday, he blasted calls for additional AI guardrails in a series of posts on Truth Social, where he repeatedly called these worries a “HOAX.”
People throughout the industry have spent years warning that the risks are real, pushing to slow development of the technology so that safeguards can catch up. Tech CEOs escalated those slowdown calls last weekend, days after an Anthropic researcher captured worldwide attention with a resignation statement that accused the top developers of “gambling with our lives.”
Pressure is growing on Congress to pass AI legislation, with Democrats and Republicans alike rallying around the issue. But House Speaker Mike Johnson seems unlikely to move AI legislation ahead of the November midterm elections, and instead appears focused on setting up a meeting between the White House and AI executives.
Sanders also called on Trump to negotiate a comprehensive treaty with Chinese President Xi Jinping that would halt advanced AI development and ban so-called superintelligence, the point where AI’s capabilities surpass humans’ ability to counter them. Sanders said he is preparing to introduce a bill with Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) next week that would do the same.
The powerful technology is expected to be discussed when Trump and Xi meet Sept. 24. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who manages the administration’s AI relationship with China, plans to meet with his Chinese counterpart this weekend.
Two Senate Republicans said Tuesday that providing antitrust exemptions to artificial intelligence companies to facilitate discussions on how to make AI safer should be taken off the table — as lawmakers discuss ways to respond to industry warnings about the need for guardrails on the rapidly evolving technology.
“To watch AI CEOs saying, ‘We’re about to destroy the world so give us control of the government so we can lock in our monopoly status and prevent any innovators from challenging us,’ is just lunacy,” Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with FBI Director Kash Patel. “And, by the way, if you’re about to destroy the world, how about, don’t. How about, stop.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) also piled on.
“Absolutely not,” Hawley said. “There is no world in which I will consent to giving the most powerful companies in the history of the world — a small group of three or four of them — antitrust exemptions from our laws so that they can, what, collude together?”
Their comments come amid rising fears that AI models could soon become advanced enough to evade human control if left unchecked. The chief executives of leading AI labs are sounding the alarm over the need to slow down progress, and one possibility could be for Congress to provide an antitrust carveout to allow competing companies to enter into agreements to stem the tide.
Patel didn’t directly address the antitrust comments at the hearing Tuesday but did provide insight into how the FBI is thinking about the emerging technology.
The department, Patel said, uses AI models under test case scenarios to make sure they are cooperating with federal law, adding that it’s important to pursue those who create AI models with criminal intent.
“We need to go after the people who created these models that are going rogue with the specific purpose and intention to commit a criminal act,” Patel said, noting that the FBI “can’t be punishing people if they created something lawfully” and then a criminal used it for nefarious acts.
Patel also said the FBI doesn’t need to create a new division to take on the issue — the existing cyber division is sufficient — but could use additional resources.
“We need federal funding to go out there and buy the creations of these companies and use them for law enforcement purposes,” Patel said.
At a separate news conference Tuesday afternoon, Attorney General Todd Blanche was noncommittal on whether AI companies need an antitrust waiver to self-regulate in the first place.
“Whether entities need an antitrust waiver is not something I can answer from the podium of the White House,” he said. “There’s dozens of factors that go into that, and there’s an application process, and there’s a kind of a process that DOJ and others use to determine what side.
He added, “I can say that, to the extent that those companies are looking to regulate themselves or fix problems that they have, that should do that.”
Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
Senate Democrats battered FBI Director Kash Patel Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary oversight hearing, combatively criticizing a broad swath of his behavior and performance to the point the panel’s chairman asked one to “shut up.”’
The scrutiny from Democrats previews how they may try to hold members of the Trump administration accountable if they take the majority after the midterms. It also highlights how the party has embraced the course confrontations common from Cabinet member testimony during the second Trump administration.
The party pressed the intelligence agency director on his investigations into journalists, drinking with U.S. hockey players in an Olympic locker room, and using taxpayer money to go on a “VIP snorkel” trip at the Pearl Harbor memorial in Hawaii, among other issues.
The tension climaxed when the normally genial Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) angrily asked Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to end his questioning of Patel, saying, ““Are you done now? Are you ready to shut up?”
Booker had called Patel a “thug” who targets reporters and their families when they write stories critical of him and the broader Trump administration, and who investigated a journalistafter writing a story on his girlfriend. When Grassley asked Booker to wrap up his comments, Booker said Grassley wasn’t being equitable with members’ time to speak.
“He’s like an 18-year-old kid who wants to join a fraternity that he could never be a member of doing keg stands and chugging with friends,” Booker said.
Patel called Booker “the biggest mockery in the United States Senate, and you’re sitting next to [Senator Adam] Schiff.”
Grassley appeared to grow frustrated with Booker’s remarks and told him he wasn’t respecting him as chair. Booker later called for Patel to be sanctioned for speaking in what he said was a disrespectful manner to Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
Earlier in the hearing, Patel sparred with Welch after Welch brought up Patel’s Olympic drinking, and intimated he couldn’t hear well after answering a question.
“Are you hard of hearing? I just said no,” Patel said.
“What you will never understand is the players who are my friends invited me,” Patel said, adding that the FBI was able to ensure “not a single security incident occurred” in at the event and called Welch a “complete and total fraud.”
Patel also pushed back against Booker’s statements around his probes of journalists and Sen. Mazie Hirono’s (D-Hawaii) questioning of his Hawaii trip, saying media coverage of the allegations has been incorrect and senators were lying.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer said proposals to use third-party organizations to evaluate the safety of frontier artificial intelligence models are not enough, instead endorsing a mandatory government vetting regime.
“With our cybersecurity, biosecurity, critical infrastructure, and national security on the line, every AI developer should have to submit their frontier models to the U.S. government for a short-clocked review before they release them to the public,” the New Jersey Democrat said in a statement Tuesday.
The use of third-party evaluators to examine the safety of AI models is a key component of a sweeping AI regulatory framework, dubbed the FRONTIER Act, championed by Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.). OpenAI signaled its support for the provision Tuesday.
But Gottheimer, who co-chairs the House AI Commission, was quick to denounce the idea and its industry backing.
“When AI developers cheer on the framework meant to hold these companies accountable, it should raise red flags, not confidence,” Gottheimer said.
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words