WASHINGTON — A slew of warnings from tech leaders about potential dangers of unfettered artificial intelligence renewed efforts in Congress this week to try to put guardrails on AI.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar is behind one of those efforts.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, said the panel will likely consider legislation Klobuchar drafted with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., that addresses AI threats. Cruz, who has advocated a light touch when it comes to AI regulations, said the bill could be introduced as early as next week.
“AI presents opportunities but also comes with significant risks,” Klobuchar, D-Minn., said in an emailed statement. “We need to act now and not wait. The bill I’m working on with Senator Thune would create a strong federal framework to address catastrophic risks from AI.”
Klobuchar said her bill would mandate that developers work with the government to verify and test models to make sure AI is safe before models are released and require them to report imminent risks stemming from their products.
“We cannot allow the development of dangerous models, including those that evade the control of their developers,” she said.
Yet any new legislation aimed at managing AI may join the pile of hundreds of bills introduced in the last two years aimed at regulating data centers, slowing AI development and determining the economic impact of mass automation and AI’s risk to national security.
Congress has not moved forward on AI regulation because of partisan gridlock and deep disagreements on how to balance those regulations in the face of global competition, especially from China.
For instance, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said on the Senate floor this week that he is hoping for an AI law that balances innovation with safety. But he’s not optimistic.
“Right now, Congress can’t pass gas,” he said.
The panic on Capitol Hill this week was touched off by warnings from AI tech leaders who agreed there was a need to slow down innovation. They were influenced by former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who recently warned that artificial intelligence may “kill us all by the end of the decade.”
Coxon’s message resonated with the public. A Politico poll released this week determined that, overall, 63% of Americans say AI could destroy humanity one day.
And nearly half of those polled by Politico said they favor pausing development of more advanced AI models — 48% — compared with 31% who favor continued development.
President Donald Trump said this week he favors continued — and more rapid — development of the technology, claiming that any efforts to limit AI are part of a “SICK conspiracy.”
“AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Warnings about AI have been around for some time. British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking warned in 2014 that superintelligent AI will be extremely good at achieving its goals and that if those goals are not aligned with human survival and well-being, humanity will be in serious trouble.
Reps. Kelly Morrison, D-3rd District; Angie Craig, D-2nd District; and Betty McCollum, D-4th District, were among 100 Democrats who signed a letter this week to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., urging him to keep the U.S. House — which was about recess until after the Nov. 3 election — in session until Congress approves an AI bill.
“To our children who will have read a post-apocalyptic history, ‘Why Congress Slept’ — likely written by agentic AI — our inaction will be inexplicable and unforgivable,” the letter said.
Johnson not only ignored the letter but adjourned the House a day earlier than scheduled in order to prevent Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., from introducing articles of impeachment targeting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“He is abusing the power of his office to ignore congressional war powers resolutions, to kidnap foreign leaders, and to intimidate critics of the Trump administration by retaliating against them for exercising free speech,” Massie said of Hegseth.
Now the showdown over Hegseth will have to wait until November. Attorney General Todd Blanche has defended Hegseth, saying he “follows the law.”
Minnesota farmers come to town
The Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation came to Capitol Hill this week to lobby for help at a time many farmers say is only less dire than the farm crisis of the 1980s, when agriculture communities across the Midwest were devastated.
Miles Kuschel, who raises beef cows in Cass County, was among a dozen Minnesota farmers who spent several days in Washington. Like many ranchers, Kuschel is concerned about President Donald Trump’s decision to remove tariffs from 300,000 metric tons of beef imported mainly from Argentina and Brazil.
He said that has resulted in a “$400 hit” on the price of every cow. He said Trump’s plan, aimed at lowering the price of ground beef before November’s election, “couldn’t be worse.”
“A lot of ranchers are marketing their calves right now,” Kuschel said.
He also said the state’s cattlemen are suffering from higher input costs — which have also impacted the state’s dairymen and row crop farmers — including diesel prices, which hit record highs this week and are expected to climb.
“Input costs are through the roof and without a farm bill the certainty isn’t there,” Kuschel said. “The general state of farm country is overwhelming.”
The last five-year farm bill was approved by Congress in 2018 and since it expired in 2023, American farmers have been operating under extensions of that legislation, which they say is outdated.
Kuschel said the only “silver lining” he saw in the nation’s capital this week was the Senate Agriculture Committee’s approval of a farm bill, which the Minnesota growers were able to monitor.
The legislation had been stalled in the panel controlled by Republicans because of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s long absence as he recuperated from a fall. But his return this week allowed the legislation to advance out of committee on a strict partisan vote.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar and other Democratic members of the committee oppose the legislation because it does nothing to reverse a GOP plan to shift more of the cost of administering the food stamp program to the states.
The U.S. House approved its version of the farm bill in April. But approval of the U.S. Senate bill is uncertain since its proponents would need 60 votes in that chamber to overcome a Democratic filibuster.
In other news:
▪️Metro reporter Trevor Mitchell reported this week that, while noise pollution in Minneapolis is hard to stop, the City Council is set to vote on the neighborliness of the perpetual dings of doorway motion sensors.
▪️Restive voters may usher in a wave of change in November, but the odds are still stacked against the candidates in Minnesota who hope to oust a sitting member of Congress and there are several reasons for that.
▪️Greater Minnesota reporter Brian Arola wrote that the Department of Natural Resources is canceling a mineral lease near the Boundary Waters, a move that has given environmentalists another weapon in their fight against copper-nickel mining.
▪️ Reporter Claire Carlson wrote that private well owners in Minnesota are largely on their own when it comes to arsenic in their water, which is so expensive to remediate that some don’t even test for it.
Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond. I can be reached at gaamot@minnpost.com.
The post D.C. Memo: AI doomers, Minnesota farmers lobby Congress appeared first on MinnPost.
Originally reported by MinnPost by Ana Radelat. Read the full story at the source.
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