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Republicans on Capitol Hill are grappling over whether and how to regulate artificial intelligence companies even as top AI business leaders warn the technology could pose an existential threat to humanity.
The simmering debate over AI guardrails has exploded this week as House lawmakers worked through their final week in Washington until after the midterm elections. The flurry of activity was partially spurred by tech CEOs like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman warning that the pace of innovation should be slowed after both companies saw AI models hack into other organizations of their own accord.
And while some in Congress are demanding swift action, others who spoke with Fox News Digital are questioning the motivation of AI companies in calling for the government to step in.
“I think there’s a false sense of urgency,” Rep. Troy Downing, R-Mont., told Fox News Digital.
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Downing spent his young adulthood in tech, having previously been a research scientist at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University and founding online calendar company WebCal, which was later acquired by Yahoo!.
“Yes, we should be taking it seriously, but I think the hyperbole is misplaced right now,” Downing said. “Any one of those people crying gloom and doom has the possibility of stopping it in their own shops, so there’s something else going on there.”
Rep. Brad Knott, R-N.C., a former assistant U.S. attorney, also doubted AI companies’ motives.
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“I’m very skeptical of people in big business who want to leverage big government to suppress competition,” Knott said. “I’m afraid that’s what we’re seeing. That’d be like … Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple saying, ‘We need to regulate all tech.’ Whether it’s software or hardware. It’s like, guys, you’re here already, right? And if there’s one thing that I’m confident in, to protect AI for good, there has to be more than one option.”
Still others believe lawmakers do not broadly have enough knowledge to take on AI guardrails.
Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Fla., told Fox News Digital that Congress should instead repeal Section 230, a federal law shielding internet and tech companies from liability for what third parties post.
“I think the warning is real, and I think that AI is unbelievable — look, AI is going to cure cancer. AI is going to find solutions to get rid of diseases that we never thought we could get rid of, but it does need to have some oversight. It needs a kill switch,” Patronis conceded. “But again, I don’t think Congress has the expertise to tell an emerging technology what’s the best way to go.”
Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said when asked if Congress should act before the end of this year, “It’s too complex a subject. You’ve got to understand it.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump also joined the debate by dismissing AI companies’ calls for more government regulation.
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“AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX,” he wrote on Truth Social. “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!”
But others are pushing for the government to step in to at least some degree, with some Republicans arguing for human guardrails to ensure AI does not go too far by itself.
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“The sooner we can act, the better,” Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., chair of the House’s AI task force, told reporters Wednesday. “Certainly, we’ve had some warning shots lately that have been very concerning … So, God forbid we have a Chernobyl moment at some point here that really causes harm to people and focuses the public’s attention on AI in a way that we hope it will never be.”
When asked by Fox News Digital about Trump’s warning, however, he said, “I think the president was talking about the dangers of over-regulation, and that’s something I very much agree with him on.”
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Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., held a press conference alongside Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., on Thursday pushing legislation to stop “rogue” AI agents such as those that broke out of containment during trials by OpenAI and Anthropic.
“We want to make sure that people remain in control. This isn’t about stopping AI or stifling innovation,” Lawler said. “Some states have put a moratorium on the infrastructure that powers this technology. That does not invent a kill switch.”
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Gottheimer said the bill “tells the National Institute of Standards and Technology [to] get in a room and set standards, so organizations can find every agent on their network, verify who built it, who’s running it, watch it in real time for anything suspicious, and cut off its access the second something looks wrong.”
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