AI regulation faces political deadlock as calls grow for Congress to act
When President Donald Trump responded to mounting calls for a slowdown in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) on Monday, he was unequivocal.
“AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX,” he wrote on social media. He earlier argued that “the only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs” is a “strong and smart” president.
Trump’s view, unsurprisingly, is not shared by senior Democrats in Congress. It is also opposed by leading figures in the AI sector, who have in recent days issued stark safety warnings and made the case for government regulation.
In the US, however, new safety legislation on AI is unlikely anytime soon.
Any bill would have to pass in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to become law. Trump’s staunch opposition to new guardrails on AI means the Republican Party, which has a majority in both chambers, is unlikely to break from him and back restrictions or government controls.
And even if they did, whatever bill is passed would most likely require the president’s signature to take effect. Trump’s dismissal of the need for regulations on Monday effectively hit pause on any hope for executive action.
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Beyond this, a more immediate obstacle to any movement in Congress is the clock.
The House is set to enter recess at the end of the week until after the midterm elections in early November. Some leading Democrats are calling for that recess to be delayed until AI safeguards can be passed in the chamber.
“Congress should not leave town until something is done decisively to protect the safety and the wellbeing of the American people,” Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Monday.
A group of House Democrats calling for Congress to be given more time to debate the issue have also written a letter to Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, who would ultimately decide on delaying the recess.
“Reasonable minds may disagree about precisely how Congress should regulate this rapidly evolving technology,” the group said. “We cannot disagree about the imperative for Congress to act.”
Over the weekend, Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna suggested on X that “Congress SHOULD convene a special session” on the issue.
But it is highly unlikely the recess will be delayed or a special session convened in the coming days. Speaker Johnson, who on Monday faced a barrage of questions about AI from reporters in the halls of Congress, gave no sign he intended to move quickly this week.
When asked if the House would take action on AI concerns before breaking for the midterms, he replied: “This is a very complex issue.”
He said Trump would hold a meeting at the White House soon with AI executives to discuss “the responsibility of the companies to maintain safety and what role, if any, the government has to play in that”.
“We want to emphasise the necessity of [AI companies] providing safe products and self-regulating,” Johnson said, before adding: “There is also a role potentially for Congress to play.”
What that role could look like is unclear – and is a contested question among those in Congress.
No consensus and competing bills
While Democrats are pushing for more time to address AI safety, they are themselves divided on how best to regulate AI.
Even if the party were to win control of both chambers of Congress in November’s elections, there are no guarantees of swift action as it would have to unite behind one proposal.
And there are numerous legislative proposals already on Capitol Hill that are designed to address AI safety, ranging from independent reviews, to a federal “kill switch”, to a total moratorium on data centres proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders.
These diverging proposals point to a lack of consensus in Congress – but also an urgency among some lawmakers to take action.
Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune and his Democratic colleague Amy Klobuchar are working on a bill that would force some AI companies to submit to federal oversight.
“You don’t want to stifle innovation,” Thune said on Monday, “but I think you also want to make sure that the more advanced threats can be mitigated.”
Democratic congresswoman Lori Trahan, meanwhile, has spent months working on a different bipartisan proposal in the House that would give the government the power to halt the use of an AI model if officials find there is an “imminent catastrophic risk”.
“The federal government needs to put guardrails in place,” she told the BBC, warning that the technology would eventually impact every aspect of society. “I don’t think we have any more time to wait. This is all hands on deck.”
Trahan has worked on her proposed legislation, the Frontier Act, jointly with Republican Jay Obernolte and, among other things, it would require independent audits of AI research labs.
But Trahan recognised that any movement this week was unlikely.
Calls for self-regulation
Some leading Republicans, including Speaker Johnson, have often referred to “self-regulation” when discussing government action and called on the companies to take responsibility for AI safety.
One of Trump’s top AI advisers, David Sacks, told the BBC’s US partner CBS News on Monday that some of the existential warnings by insiders had been overblown. “I think this is becoming a panic,” he said.
“First and foremost, it is on them to make their products safe,” Sacks said. “They should tell us how they should do that. If they can’t do that, they should step aside for people who can do that.”
“Why are you acting like this is something that you can’t control?” he said, referring to Anthropic’s boss Dario Amodei, who has called for a slowdown in development. “If you can’t control it, then don’t do it.”
Some experts share the view that, in the short-term at least, it is up to the AI companies to regulate themselves responsibly.
“You might want an act of Congress, and I would love a congressionally mandated regime that requires safety and testing and bias testing,” said Asad Ramzanali, the director of AI & Technology Policy at Vanderbilt University.
“But absent that action, the companies have autonomy.”
Others have expressed scepticism at the recent flurry of warnings by AI staffers.
Trevor Traina, a tech executive who was a diplomat during Trump’s first term, said: “I don’t think the typical citizen has encountered anything scary or really problematic with AI.”
“We’re relying on the tweets of a half-dozen people who are all vying for perceived supremacy,” he said. “The cynic in me thinks, ‘Are they are really concerned, or are they trying to prove which model is the most awesome?'”
Alexandra Reeve Givens, who previously worked in government and now leads the US non-profit the Center for Democracy and Technology, said she did not think meaningful federal AI regulation would pass in the foreseeable future.
While the Trump administration has set up an entirely voluntary framework for AI companies to submit their models and tools for government assessment, Givens noted that the framework itself remains a secret.
“There’s no clear standard to make sure that the approach is even grounded in the rule of law,” she said.
Appeals from various groups to release the framework have so far gone ignored.
The White House approach, combined with a lack of political will and consensus, makes passing laws around AI difficult.
“There is no question that federal legislation is challenging in this climate, but Congress also has to grapple with which of the many types of AI risk need to be addressed,” Givens said.
“It’s not that AI is ungovernable, it’s that each risk needs a tailored approach.”
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