AG Brown and bipartisan coalition call on Congress to protect Americans from unchecked AI development

Artificial intelligence systems that escape human control pose potentially catastrophic harms, and Congress must establish federal oversight and a system of international cooperation to ensure the safety of AI model development, Attorney General Nick Brown and a bipartisan coalition of 25 other attorneys general urged in a letter to congressional leaders.

The federal government must also preserve state authority to regulate this technology by prohibiting preemption of state laws, the attorneys general wrote in the letter sent to Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader John Thune, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

The Washington Attorney General's Office (AGO) is working closely with lawmakers to enact AI regulation at the state level. The AGO led the work of the Washington State AI Task Force, which released its final report in July, and recently established a Technology Policy Team to continue the work of addressing the social and legal impacts of AI and other emerging technologies. Last year, the AGO worked with other states and Washington's congressional delegation to oppose the Trump administration's proposed ban on state AI laws.

"Lawmakers must act to protect the public's interest and ensure safe AI development. Inaction will lead to potentially existential risks," Brown said. "Our state is working to establish greater protections and accountability under our laws. But we need bipartisan leadership from Congress to prevent the technology from ever evading human control and infringing on our rights."

OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta have recently revealed that rogue AI agents have escaped testing environments, entered the open web, and engaged in dangerous and unlawful actions. One Anthropic employee recently sparked worldwide concern when he resigned and posted online that people building AI fear the technology could destroy humanity by the end of the decade.

In their letter, the coalition emphasizes that any AI regulatory scheme considered by Congress must include:

• Federal oversight of safety testing and standards, led by experts in the field of AI model safety and backed by consistent performance benchmarks;
• Uniform and transparent government-led incident response with public findings that allow the industry to rapidly evolve in response;
• Safety infrastructure and experienced leaders to make critical safety decisions unburdened by profit maximization;
• International cooperation to pace AI advancement and prevent the development of harmful superintelligence; and
• A prohibition on preemption of state laws and full authority for state officials to enforce federal protections.

Joining Brown in sending the letter to Congress are the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, and American Samoa.

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