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\n

House Republicans have left Washington till November. President Donald Trump is decrying concerns<\/a> about the issue as a \u201cHOAX.\u201d But a few Senate Republicans are trying to nudge their party into doing something \u2014 anything \u2014 about artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t much binding them together aside from the \u201cR\u201d next to their names, but Sens. John Curtis<\/a>, Josh Hawley<\/a> and John Kennedy<\/a> have each been closely attuned as voters suddenly grow alarmed \u2014 not only about the data centers powering the AI industry, but the recent insider warnings about potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity.<\/p>\n

Curtis is a Utah moderate who has been among the few in his party to take seriously<\/a> scientists\u2019 warnings about climate change. Hawley is a populist Missouri conservative who has long been skeptical<\/a> of Silicon Valley business titans. And Kennedy\u2019s simple-Louisiana-country-lawyer persona<\/a> belies a relatively sophisticated understanding of frontier AI developments.<\/p>\n

The trio is not coordinating efforts, but their individual actions were part of a clear push from the GOP\u2019s back benches over the past week to get party leaders to wake up and address an issue they believe could tilt the upcoming midterms and certainly the presidential and congressional races in 2028.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe might want to be on the side of voters<\/a> \u2014 just a thought,\u201d Hawley said, noting that while he has his own \u201cviews\u201d on how Washington should respond, party leaders have offered members no guidance on how to approach the topic.<\/p>\n

Hawley is taking matters in his own hands this week by convening a hearing in the Judiciary subcommittee he chairs on AI-powered Flock cameras. He\u2019s also using another subcommittee gavel<\/a> to investigate OpenAI over the runaway model that saw hundreds of rogue agents escape testing and hack another tech company.<\/p>\n

Both Curtis and Hawley have teamed up with Democrats, who have generally been more aggressive in calling for AI safety measures \u2014 particularly since a former OpenAI and Anthropic employee went public saying advanced models could \u201ccould kill us all by the end of the decade.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawley and Sen. Richard Blumenthal<\/a> (D-Conn.) \u2014 who both sit on the Judiciary and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee \u2014 pushed congressional leaders last week to hold a vote on their \u201crisk evaluation\u201d legislation<\/a>, arguing that \u201cfrontier AI demands frontier legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curtis, meanwhile, joined with a fellow Commerce Committee member, Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester<\/a> (D-Del.), to call for \u201cimmediate public hearings\u201d to \u201cwork through solutions that maintain America\u2019s competitive edge in development while ensuring that these technologies serve human interests and remain fully under human control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curtis said in an interview lawmakers need to \u201cshow that we\u2019re adults in the room, that we can talk about this, that we can find solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t want to say we’re making it too hard, but I think we’re making it too hard,\u201d Curtis said. \u201cAnd what I mean by that is, there’s a lot of false narratives out there \u2014 we need to just jump on this immediately and clamp it down, or we need to not touch it, and all of that only I think causes anxiety back home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both efforts could be seen as attempts to jolt more senior senators who are in positions to advance AI-related legislation. So far they are treading carefully amid skepticism among Senate Republicans that they will ever be able to overcome Trump\u2019s opposition on AI regulations and recalcitrance among House GOP leaders, according to three people granted anonymity to describe private conversations.<\/p>\n

They include Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley<\/a> (R-Iowa), who indicated in an interview that he had no plans to hold hearings or take other action related to AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that I\u2019d be getting into the jurisdiction of the Commerce Committee,\u201d Grassley said, directing further questions to Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas).<\/p>\n

Cruz has been more deeply engaged than Grassley in AI matters, but his plans for action remain uncertain. He said last week he is still hoping to hold a committee vote on AI safety legislation this month before the Senate leaves for the final stretch of pre-midterm campaigning.<\/p>\n

Cruz is engaged in negotiating a revised version of an AI safety bill that Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> and Sen. Amy Klobuchar<\/a> (D-Minn.) first introduced in 2023. But multiple Commerce Committee Republicans said they have so far heard zilch behind the scenes about what the committee could do, and some doubt they will be able to get an agreement in time to act before the Senate leaves \u2014 possibly as soon as the end of this week.<\/p>\n

While Thune himself has been the most engaged on AI issues<\/a> among top GOP leaders, he still advocated for a \u201clight touch\u201d on industry regulation last week while acknowledging the \u201cconsiderable amount of interest\u201d among lawmakers in taking action.<\/p>\n

Sen. John Barrasso<\/a> of Wyoming, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said \u2014 as Hawley suggested \u2014 that he isn\u2019t giving members guidance on how to talk about AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have opinions and they\u2019re going to make their opinions known and talk to their voters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Kennedy, who recently said the industry is run by \u201c high-IQ stupid people<\/a>\u201d and was the rare Republican who attended a briefing put together by Sen. Bernie Sanders<\/a> (I-Vt.) last week to meet with AI experts to talk about potential safeguards for the technology.<\/p>\n

He took his AI concerns straight to the Senate floor Wednesday, seeking to pass legislation this week that would require companies to install so-called \u201ckill switches\u201d for their AI models. In a speech before seeking unanimous consent to pass the bill, he delivered a homespun but technically detailed summation of the OpenAI swarm attack and the risks posed by \u201crecursive self-improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

His bill was blocked<\/a> by Sen. Rand Paul<\/a> (R-Ky.), who instead proposed creating a panel to make recommendations about potential guardrails.<\/p>\n

Kennedy said appointing a committee would be \u201cthe weenie way out\u201d after warning his colleagues from the Senate floor that Americans were growing \u201cvery skeptical\u201d of AI and the tech titans behind it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve seen this vampire movie before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In a separate interview, Kennedy said he hadn\u2019t heard \u201canything\u201d about action in the Senate to address AI and that lawmakers who ignore the growing voter uproar around the issue were courting peril.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really need to send a memo around explaining we\u2019ve got midterm elections coming,\u201d he said. \u201cI may send that out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House Republicans have left Washington till November. President Donald Trump is decrying concerns about the issue as a \u201cHOAX.\u201d But a few Senate Republicans are trying to nudge their party into doing something \u2014 anything \u2014 about artificial intelligence. There isn\u2019t much binding them together aside from the \u201cR\u201d next to their names, but Sens. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}