AI insiders say their technology could doom humanity. Will Congress act?

Splendid news from Washington: the people building the machine that may end civilisation have reached a consensus. According to Politico, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said Wednesday that there is 'broad consensus' — including, crucially, from the AI companies themselves — that they want a regulatory framework. The makers of the thing want rules. Not rules that would slow anything down, obviously. Just rules, ideally drafted with their extensive and expensive input. Consensus, in this telling, means everyone agrees the document should exist and nobody has agreed what goes in it.

Lawler calls the subject one of the biggest issues that Congress has to tackle over the next two years. Two years. There have been ceasefire agreements with tighter deadlines. Meanwhile Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took the existential-risk brief to ABC's 'The View' on Wednesday, describing the new AI warnings as 'highly concerning' and endorsing legislation to prevent 'catastrophic risk'. Between the Hot Topics and the audience giveaways, an entire species' downside got a segment. If you wanted to signal that something is a genuine, act-now emergency, you'd naturally book the show best known for people talking over each other about their marriages.

And this is a sequel, of sorts. Earlier this month we flagged that OpenAI had asked for mandatory national AI safety requirements, which is a bit like a fox requesting a slightly better-designed henhouse, with fox input on the hinges. Now the headline asks whether Congress will act. What we have, per Politico, is a House member calling it one of the two-year agenda's largest items and a Senate Commerce chair who's in favour — and not, in the excerpt, a single scheduled vote. The insiders say their technology could doom humanity. The plan, as far as one can tell, is to keep saying so politely on television.