The event was planned before last week's bombshell post by Jacob Coxon, an Anthropic employee who resigned and wrote on X about the critical risks of unchecked AI development and said major developers including OpenAI and Anthropic are "gambling with our lives." But the gathering took on new meaning in the revelation's wake, as much of Washington scrambles to come to terms with a technology that has evolved rapidly and for which little regulation exists.
Following Coxon's post, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company would delay its plans to go public this year, citing growing concerns about AI safety. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay last weekend urging AI companies to slow development. His proposal got online endorsements from both Altman and xAI founder Elon Musk.
But the alarms have so far gone unheeded by President Donald Trump and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, despite some in the populist wing of his MAGA base urging action.
Bannon called on Democrats and Republicans to "rise above" partisanship to address AI risk and provide a check on companies.
"This is a hinge in history," Bannon said. "We can never trust what oligarchs say, because all they do, they're disingenuous, and they lie. This has to be the American people ... We're not going to be supplicants anymore."
Meanwhile, Trump has called the concerns a "hoax" and doubled-down on his support for the industry.
"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 on Monday.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said it is the responsibility of the tech companies, and not of Congress, to regulate themselves. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, invoked the threat of China in an interview with Politico, saying if the technology does turn lethal, he'd "rather they be American killer robots and not Chinese killer robots."
And on Tuesday morning, roughly a mile away from the Future of Life Event, Vice President JD Vance met with Republicans near the Capitol. According to Republicans in the room, AI didn't come up.
Even among those who recognize AI is a growing threat, so far there's been little consensus on how to address it. Roy, at the event, seemed to split somewhat with the president and advocate a balanced approach between government and business. Roy is the policy chair of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, a group that has split with Trump over federal spending and other issues.
"The president yesterday said that he should be making the decisions on AI. I disagree. I don't think big tech CEOs should be making all the decisions about AI. I don't think Congress should be making all the decisions about AI," Roy said, though he did say Congress should work through its committees, with outside input, to decide on how to harness the technology.
Casar, who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Sanders earlier this month announced legislation to ban AI superintelligence and temporarily pause advanced AI development. And Lori Trahan, D-Mass., who has been one of the loudest voices on Capitol Hill in recent months on AI regulation, co-led bipartisan legislation in June that would create a federal framework for how the U.S. governs the technology. She also spoke at the Tuesday event.
But any calls for quick legislative action on AI safety will likely go unanswered, at least until after the election, as the House is set to leave Washington on Thursday and not return until after the Nov. 3 election.
And Republicans have repeatedly expressed fears that any slowdown by U.S. AI companies could be a leg up for China or other adversaries.
"We cannot have a moratorium on the development of AI, okay, because then we will lose our edge to China, and that has serious national security implications for every American family," Johnson told reporters on Tuesday.
Trahan, at the Future of Life event, rejected that framing.
"If we lose grip on this technology, we don't lose it as Democrats or Republicans, as Americans or Chinese. We lose it as human beings, all of us together," she said.
And Sanders, also speaking from the event, said he hoped Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping would negotiate a treaty to pause AI development at a planned summit next week.
"A super intelligent AI that escapes human control will not simply be an American problem. It will not be a Chinese problem. It will be humanity's problem," Sanders said.
