Senators suspicious of AI companies’ motivations in begging to be regulated

Call them skeptical. Senators who have spent years fighting Big Tech find it odd that leading AI companies are banding together in a quest for government regulation.

The AI companies ostensibly are worried that artificial intelligence is developing too rapidly, escaping human controls and could one day wipe out humanity.

Lawmakers say some of that may be true, but they see other more sinister motivations at play with the coordinated push for the government to be in charge of pacing AI development.

“I think some people want us to come in and lock in these monopolies that the Big Tech giants have. That’s what I’m skeptical of,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt.

His fellow Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley said the AI company CEOs seem to be casting themselves as bystanders, rather than ones who created the issue.

“They set it up. They’re making billions of dollars on it. They should be responsible,” he said. “And this is why we should not allow them to write the rules.”

Mr. Hawley pointed to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s blog post calling for AI companies to voluntarily set common safety standards “in parallel with the regulatory route.”

“For antitrust reasons, it’s helpful for the US government to mediate or at least enable these discussions — they don’t need to participate, but do need to issue a narrow waiver for certain kinds of safety conversations,” Mr. Amodei wrote.

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Mr. Hawley said the AI companies should not get any antitrust exemptions.

“That’s the last thing they need,” he said. “Leave the five biggest, most powerful companies in the world with the permission to collude. I’m a hard no on that. But that means that we actually have to do something for a change.”

Congress has a responsibility to ensure those powerful AI companies “don’t end up controlling our entire economy, our entire regulatory system and the livelihoods of every American – not to mention their personal information,” Mr. Hawley said.

That sentiment is bipartisan, but the specific legislative solution remains elusive.

“I have a concern about any kind of antitrust exemption, especially when there’s already more than one company supposedly competing in this space,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Democrat. “But AI is so ubiquitous, and then they have these AI entities called agents that can go rogue. That’s really troubling. So there’s a lot for us to figure out what to do.”

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, said Congress would never approve an antitrust exemption for the top AI companies – “none, zero, not any at all.”

“We have a serious threat from AI, and it’s clear we cannot let the tech companies either manage themselves voluntarily or write the regulations,” she said. “This is the job of government: to independently investigate and put rules in place that are not driven by the desire to maximize the profits of companies, but are instead about protecting safety.”

Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat, has proposed legislation to create a government AI risk board to assess the safety of frontier models.

“I do get the argument people saying you don’t want to reinforce these companies’ incumbency power,” he said. “So I think any of that review ought to have what’s called small tech on the review panel as well.”

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Mr. Warner said his interest in AI safety regulations came long before industry officials’ warnings about the self-improving technology posing a threat to humanity.

“I’m not a doomer. I don’t think we’re talking about human extinction,” he said. “We are talking about the potential to take over of a bank or take over of a hospital or a water system.”

Mr. Hawley pointed to similar types of threats in arguing that Congress not only needs to establish safety regulations but also a process for legal liability when companies break the rules.

“There needs to be the ability for ordinary people to get into court and hold somebody liable,” he said.

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When asked whether the AI companies appear to be truly motivated by safety, not a single senator interviewed for this story could definitely say yes.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

The South Dakota Republican acknowledged the concerns his colleagues have raised about the AI companies seeking antitrust and liability exemptions but said he thinks they also see the need for guardrails around the technology they’re developing.

“I’ll give them, for the most part, the benefit of the doubt that they’re trying to do the right thing,” Mr. Thune said.

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Others were less generous.

“I don’t completely trust the AI tech CEOs. I’m not saying they’re as bad as timeshare salesmen, but they clearly have a conflict of interest,” said Sen. John Kennedy.

“And so I am skeptical whenever they suggest something,” the Louisiana Republican said. “It doesn’t mean they’re wrong, but they have billions on the line.”

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Lindsey McPherson

lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com

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