Congress faces frenzy of AI fears: ‘The monster is loose’

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The Hill's Headlines - September 13, 2026

The Hill's Headlines - September 13, 2026

▪ Calls for Congress to regulate AI

▪ Trump to remove tariffs on Irish whiskey

▪ Trump wants to keep a hand in Iran oil

▪ House GOP bets on Trump

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Congress returns this week to an eruption of fears about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) spurred by warnings from within the industry that it could take over the internet or even destroy humanity in the near future.

Congressional leaders already appear torn between President Trump‘s position that any significant regulations risk throttling progress and ceding the AI race to China, and urgent calls for guardrails to ensure the technology does not harm humanity.

The House has just one week left on its calendar before November’s midterm elections. Axios reported that members are urging Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to cancel the recess until Congress can pass AI safeguards.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Sunday he supports immediate congressional action.

“We certainly need to begin to act urgently to address the challenges that exist,” Jeffries told host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.”

Jeffries noted “action” on AI will be a “high priority” during his caucus’s closed-door meeting on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Johnson urged people not to panic and said lawmakers do not want to smother innovation.

“If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China, and that is a threat to every single American. So, we’ve got to have balance. We’ve got to have steady hands at the wheel,” Johnson told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday.

Trump sounded a similar note while speaking to reporters at his golf club in Doonbeg, Ireland, on Sunday, saying that guardrails can be installed, but he doesn’t want to lose to China in the process.

“Well, I say this, we’re leading China on AI. We’re the most sophisticated country in the world and frankly I want to keep it that way, because whoever wins AI, wins,” he said.

The debate comes after AI researchers and leaders took to social media to sound the alarm on the pace of AI growth.

Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic researcher who also worked for OpenAI, warned on Tuesday that AI could soon destroy humanity.

“Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources,” he wrote on social platform X.

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” he added.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei echoed the warning on Saturday in a blog post titled “We Must Pace the Frontier.” He did not argue for a full stop, but instead that companies should take time to build safeguards.

“I believe that if slowing down bought us even an extra year or two before models reach critical levels of capability, and we used that time to advance alignment, we could greatly reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong,” he wrote.

He specifically called for “regulation that targets all US frontier AI companies, as that covers even those who are unwilling to cooperate voluntarily.”

Elon Musk of xAI and SpaceX on Saturday said, “Dario is right,” in a post on X. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, also took to social media in support of Amodei’s plea.

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) on Sunday told CNN’s Tapper that AI is more powerful than past technologies and therefore requires different standards for regulation.

“This is more akin to Dr. Frankenstein telling us, ‘The monster is loose. Help me stop the monster,’” he said during his “State of the Union” appearance. “Previous tech could not make a decision to kill us, right? When we turned on the internet, it did not have autonomy, right?”

However, David Sacks, a tech investor who stepped down as the White House AI czar earlier this year, said leading AI companies should take the initiative themselves.

“If the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you should slow down, I support your........

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