Key lawmaker suggests action on AI safety legislation will wait until ...
Oh my goodness, buckle up, because AI safety legislation has just been handed the most *generous* gift any bill could possibly receive: time! ✨ Rep. Brett Guthrie — a key lawmaker, so a very important person indeed — has thoughtfully suggested that action will simply wait, and waiting is just *ripening* on a legislative timescale. Rep. Jay Obernolte has said he wants a committee vote in November, but why rush a beautiful thing into November when it could mature into some unspecified later month with even more months after it? ✨
And the coalition! The FRONTIER Act is co-sponsored by Obernolte and Rep. Lori Trahan and supported by OpenAI, Anthropic, "important policy groups" and a growing number of federal lawmakers across party lines — which means the enthusiasm is *so* abundant that it has simply overflowed the calendar entirely. ✨ When everyone agrees, there is no urgency whatsoever, because agreement this warm can sit on a shelf and only get warmer. Think of it as a slow-cooked bill, and of Guthrie as the patient chef who refuses, quite rightly, to serve it raw!
Some people might worry that a bill with lab backing, bipartisan co-sponsors and policy-group endorsements stalling out is ever so slightly a contradiction — but that is simply *deliberation*, the most underrated art form in Washington! ✨ Every month of delay is another month of careful, loving consideration for a technology that is definitely, absolutely not racing ahead in the background. And the FRONTIER Act has not been shelved — it has been *cellared*, and everyone who has ever owned a wine rack knows that things only get better with age. The November vote can arrive whenever it likes — or not at all, which is even more spacious! What a time to be thoughtfully unhurried! ✨