Congress Returns Briefly Amid AI Concerns but Unlikely to Act Before Midterms

Congress is back — at least for a little bit.

The House of Representatives and the Senate returned on Monday after the Labor Day weekend, the Republican midterm convention and the Jewish High Holy Day of Rosh Hashanah.

But the House will only be in session for a week, since House Speaker Mike Johnson canceled the final two weeks of the session before the midterms. This means there will be scant time for legislating.

Yet, this is all happening — or not happening — at a moment when many feel that Congress must act with haste. Last week, Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic, resigned and posted a thread on X warning, “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” This came after rogue OpenAI agents hacked AI firm Hugging Face.

Do not expect the Republican-controlled Congress to act. Why? Because President Donald Trump does not want any action.

“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades,” Trump posted on Truth Social Monday. The president also continued his support for AI data centers despite pushback even from members of his own party.

“There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so,” he said.

Rather, Washington is set to try and vote on the Protect College Sports Act — which is why Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) appeared on ESPN’s College Gameday to be roundly booed — and potentially to vote on legislation on cryptocurrency known as the CLARITY Act.

And Johnson seems to be falling into line. Over the weekend, he told CBS’ Face the Nation that “some guardrails, some safety measures” might be needed, the United States should not “lose our edge in the global competition on this with China because that would be a national security threat.”

Democrats are not as optimistic as Johnson. Many have found some stray Republicans who want to see some safeguards around AI.

“The models keep getting more powerful, and nothing but the honor system is holding AI companies accountable,” Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) said. “Congress can fix that. The question is whether we will before more damage is done.”

Trahan is the co-author, alongside Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.), of the FRONTIER Act, which would create a tiered system of regulations, have ongoing assessments and independent audits of AI developers.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) has a separate piece of legislation with Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) called the AI Kill Switch Act, which would mandate that AI firms have the ability to throttle, suspend or shut down AI systems.

“Dear Speaker Johnson: Your party controls subpoena power. You can do the “big meeting” right now by issuing subpoenas to AI industry leaders and summoning them to testify before the American people,” he said in response to Johnson’s words. “Instead, you changed the House schedule to give us two more weeks of vacation.”

The Senate for it’s part seems to be at least willing to hear about AI. Axios reported that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will convene an event with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon focused on “pro-human” AI.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) was more blunt in his assessment of the risks AI poses, saying it posed a bigger risk than nuclear weapons or the internet.

“This is more akin to Doctor Frankenstein telling us ‘the monster is loose, help me stop the monster,’” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

But with members already gearing up to go home by the time they arrive on the House floor, they likely will not carve out time to act as quick as AI’s own executives and cofounders are warning. And given the election is mostly about the cost of living, it might be some time before AI becomes a pressing political issue.