AI safety fight in Congress leaves tech stocks unmoved for now
Lawmakers are split on regulating artificial intelligence ahead of the midterms, with no bill close to passing.
Published
Anthropic and OpenAI have pledged to slow work on their most advanced models after industry warnings that the technology could become impossible to control, according to Bloomberg. That has not stopped a fight in Washington over whether Congress should step in.
Rep. Lori Trahan, a Massachusetts Democrat, is pushing the Frontier Act, a bill she wrote with Rep. Jay Obernolte, a California Republican, that would set safety and transparency rules for the largest AI companies, NBC News reported. Dozens of other AI bills have been filed in Congress in recent years. None have gained traction, according to NBC News.
Speaker Mike Johnson has said fears that AI could threaten humanity are overstated and that companies can police themselves without government rules, Roll Call reported. President Trump has said he is not worried about AI posing an existential risk but is concerned about the US losing an AI race with China, NBC News reported. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, has questioned on social media whether Congress even has the expertise to regulate a technology that changes as fast as AI does, and whether rivals would follow the same rules, according to NBC News.
Money is already moving into the fight. Leading The Future, a super PAC backed by OpenAI president Greg Brockman, venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, has raised more than $125 million, with $70 million in cash heading into the midterms, The Hill reported. States have moved faster than Washington: New York's RAISE Act, signed into law in December, requires large AI developers to publish safety protocols and report incidents, and the White House has opposed a similar transparency bill in Utah, calling it unworkable, according to The Hill and Axios. Data centers have also become a midterm flashpoint, with candidates from both parties calling for construction moratoriums or other limits, TNND reported.
For investors, none of this changes much yet. Regulatory risk is already reflected in the valuations of the large technology companies building AI systems, and the midterm elections have not produced any bill close to passing. That leaves the calculus for AI investors largely where it was before the debate in Congress picked up.