WASHINGTON — Amid warnings that artificial intelligence could soon wipe out humanity, some lawmakers are not confident that Congress has the expertise or ability to regulate AI.
“A lot of them can’t spell it,” quipped Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. “They just don’t have the experience.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., was equally skeptical. “They still don’t know how to get on the internet,” let alone understand AI, he said.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who represents parts of Silicon Valley, argued that many members of Congress are just not up to speed on AI, and some seem uninterested.
“The problem in Congress is not that we don’t have enough computer scientists. It’s that we don’t have enough people who have a basic understanding of how the technology works or are using it,” Khanna said in an interview with NBC News.
“It’s like talking about making the rules for driving the road. You don’t have to be an auto mechanic, but it would be nice if you at least were a passenger in a car or had driven a car,” he continued. “And we’ve had a lot of members of Congress who’ve not been passengers in a car when it comes to AI, or certainly haven’t driven it.”
One thing that everyone seems to agree on: Congress is not close to regulating AI. Capitol Hill has been notoriously slow to regulate new technology. It hasn’t passed any sweeping, comprehensive legislation regulating the internet, invented more than 40 years ago, instead taking a more piecemeal approach and relying on existing laws. And exactly 20 years after Facebook became available to the public, lawmakers are still struggling to figure out how to regulate social media.
New rules aimed at protecting kids online are popular in theory, but actual legislation remains stalled, with House and Senate negotiators deadlocked on the issue.
“This is the United States Congress you’re talking about. I mean, nothing moves very quickly,” said Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former astronaut and Navy combat pilot who backs AI regulation.
It’s “much easier” to fly a fighter jet than to pass AI legislation, he added.
But while there are plenty of skeptics who believe Congress doesn’t have the capability to tackle AI regulations, there are optimists who think it does.
One is Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., who is pursuing a master’s degree in machine learning at George Mason University to keep pace with new technology. Beyer served on the bipartisan House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and now serves on a Democratic commission on AI.
“Oh, I very much think there’s a capacity here. Yeah, you don’t need to be a Ph.D. or a master’s in computer science to know what to do next,” said Beyer, who is 76. “I think the parallel is we don’t have to be biologists or chemists to set up the FDA, or lawyers or stockbrokers to set up the SEC. There are 12 to 20 members of Congress already, just in the House, that have AI bills.”
What’s blocking any significant legislative movement on AI is political will from Republicans, he argued.
“I think we definitely have the capacity. What we need is a speaker who will let us put the bills on the floor,” said Beyer, who has been advocating for Democratic leaders to create a select committee on artificial intelligence if the party wins control of the House this fall.
Democrats, a handful of Republicans and key tech leaders believe that Congress needs to step in now and regulate the AI industry following high-profile AI breaches.
“AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that … cause a billion deaths,” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said in an interview with Kristen Welker that will air Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
“No one thinks self-regulation is enough,” he added.
President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will host an AI summit with tech leaders in Washington on Tuesday, according to a White House official and a source familiar with the plans. But, given their past comments, it’s likely to focus more on tech innovation and competition than on reining in the companies.
Trump has repeatedly said that he does not want to “stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the industrial revolution,” as he put it in a speech to world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly this week.
“We’re going to encourage it, not rein it in,” Trump said.
He has also dismissed the recent apocalyptic warnings as a “hoax” and said regulations will impede America in its race with China for AI dominance. Johnson has said some safety guardrails are needed but has argued Congress should not get in the way of American innovation.
At a recent campaign rally, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., who is running in one of the most competitive Senate races in November and is mentioned as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, blamed Trump and the “weakness of our politics” for congressional inaction on AI.
“Tech titans dig bunkers while warning us the new intelligence they’re creating risks human extinction. Congress debates youth sports, and the president builds a ballroom,” Ossoff said. “An ancient establishment, barely capable of email, sleepwalks into a technological revolution, while the president dismantles precautions and calls us fools for worrying.”
The House made a big push on AI in 2024, with a bipartisan task force that held two dozen hearings and produced a 273-page report on a framework for potential AI legislation, with nearly 90 recommendations.
Many of those recommendations have been translated into bills that are now being considered by committees and subcommittees, said Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., who chaired the task force and holds a master’s degree in AI from UCLA. One of these measures is the Frontier Act, his bipartisan bill with Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., that would create national safety rules for building and using advanced AI models.
“Would I prefer that the process had moved faster? Yes, absolutely,” Obernolte said. “Has it been moving as fast as it could, given the constraints that everyone was under? Yes, I believe it has.”
Obernolte said the bipartisan AI task force was not renewed this Congress because it had issued its report and fulfilled its mission. But he said it has created a group of AI experts on Capitol Hill whom other lawmakers can rely on and ask questions of.
The task force, he said, began with members who knew nothing about AI and are now “deeply educated” on the issue.
Asked if he’s confident Congress can rise to the occasion and pass something on AI, Obernolte replied: “Confident is too strong, but hopeful.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, was more pessimistic, pointing out that the Senate this month failed to pass a landmark cryptocurrency bill despite years of bipartisan work, and that AI developments seem to be moving at warp speed.
“This process of legislating takes so long that by the time we even got to that step — I mean, crypto, we’re four years in. We haven’t passed it,” Moreno said. “So imagine AI four years in. We’re dealing with stuff that’s not even relevant in four years.”
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who serves on the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, said he doesn’t believe most members of Congress have the expertise to understand all of the complexities of AI, but nor should they focus on trying to regulate every aspect of the technology.
Instead, he said, lawmakers should focus on passing legislation, like his AI LEAD Act, that would hold tech companies legally liable for any harm caused by AI.
“Expertise? No, but we … don’t need to set minute regulations. What we should do is, for example, we should open the courthouse doors so that citizens who are harmed by AI, who when AI agents go out and crash the banking system or commit cyberattacks or hack data, the companies should be liable for that,” Hawley said.
