Ted Cruz mentioned how his daughter was using ChatGPT when texting him. I wonder how many of these senators and CEOs, and their staffers and advisors, are already doing the same, when they try to decide AI policy. I guess that would be an example of weak-to-strong superalignment :-)
Today’s post will be a little different. This past week,Sam Altman and others testified at a US Senate hearing on AI competitiveness.
Here’s one summary of how Altman handled it:
So is the plan then to have AI developers not vet their systems before rolling them out? Is OpenAI not planning to vet their systems before rolling them out? This ‘sensible regulation that does not slow us down’ seems to translate to no regulation at all, as per usual.
And that was indeed the theme of the Senate hearing, both from the Senators and from the witnesses. The Senate is also setting up to attempt full preemption of all state and local AI-related laws, without any attempt to replace them, or realistically without any attempt to later pass any laws whatsoever to replace the ones that are barred.
Most of you should probably skip the main section that paraphrases the Senate hearing. I do think it is enlightening, and at times highly amusing at least to me, but it is long and one must prioritize, I only managed to cut it down ~80%. You can also pick and choose from the pull quotes at the end.
Table of Contents
Advance Summary and Analysis Before the Main Event
I will now give the shortened version of this hearing, gently paraphrased, in which we get bipartisan and corporate voices saying among other things rather alarmingly:
Needless to say, I do not agree with most of that.
It is rather grim out there. Almost everyone seems determined to not only go down the Missile Gap road into a pure Race, but also to use that as a reason to dismiss any other considerations out of hand, and indeed not to even acknowledge that there are any other worries out there to dismiss, beyond ‘the effect on jobs.’ This includes both the Senators and also Altman and company.
The discussion was almost entirely whether we should move to lock out all AI regulations and whether we should impose any standards of any kind on AI at all, except narrowly on deepfakes and such. There was no talk about even trying to make the government aware of what was happening. SB 1047 and other attempts at sensible rules were routinely completely mischaracterized.
There was no sign that anyone was treating this as anything other than a (very important) Normal Technology and Mere Tool.
If you think most of the Congress has any interest in not dying? Think again.
That could of course rapidly change once more. I expect it to. But not today.
We did also see many copies of sensible statements such as:
The most glaring pattern was the final form of Altman’s pivot to jingoism and opposing all meaningful regulation, while acting as if AI poses no major downside risks, not even technological unemployment let alone catastrophic or existential risks or loss of human control over the future.
Peter then offers a summary of testimony, including how much Cruz is driving the conversation towards ‘lifting any finger anywhere dooms us to become the EU and to lose to China’ style rhetoric.
You also get to very quickly see which Senators are serious about policy and understanding the world, versus those here to create partisan soundbites or push talking points and hear themselves speak, versus those who want to talk about or seek special pork for their state. Which ones are curious and inquisitive versus which ones are hostile and mean. Which ones think they are clever and funny when they aren’t.
It is amazing how consistently and quickly the bad ones show themselves. Every time.
And to be clear, that has very little to do with who is in which party.
My Offer Is Nothing
Indeed, the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee is explicitly trying for outright preemption, without replacement, trying to slip it into their budget proposal:
That is, of course, completely insane, in addition to presumably being completely illegal to put into a budget.
It would be one thing to pass this supposed ‘light touch’ AI regulation, that presented a new legal regime to handle AI models at the federal level, and do so while preempting state action.
It is quite another to have your offer be nothing. Literally nothing. As in, we are Congress, we cannot pass laws, but we will prevent you from enforcing any laws, or fixing any laws, for ten years.
The mind boggles to think of even the mundane the implications. It wouldn’t even be good for the AI industry, because the existing patchwork of insane state laws that are not about AI would be forced to fully apply to AI, straight up, with no modifications.
As Dean Ball has often pointed out, this would cause massive chaos. States couldn’t do anything from allowing AI to sidestep occupational licensing requirements to providing safe harbor for autonomous vehicles. AI could be shut out of wide areas of American life unless Congress steps in swiftly.
That’s all in addition to the inability of the states to do the kinds of things we need them to do that this law is explicitly trying to prevent, such as SB 1047’s requirements that if you want to train a frontier AI model, you have to tell us you are doing that and share your safety and security protocol, and take reasonable care against catastrophic (and existential) risks. Again, this is with zero sign of any federal rule at all.
Quick Style Guide
In the following, if quote marks are used they literally said it. If not it’s a dramatization. I was maximizing truthiness, not aiming for a literal translation, read this as if it’s an extended SNL sketch, written largely for my own use and amusement.
We Now Take You Live to the Senate Hearing
Some Highlighted Pull Quotes
In particular, these literal quotes are worth remembering or referencing:
This exchange was pretty wild, the one time someone asked about this, and Altman dodges it:
Sam Altman on DeepSeek and how big a deal it was:
Here’s an exchange that happened:
Where Does This Leave Us?
For the time being, we are not hoping the Congress will help us not die, or help the economy and society deal with the transformations that are coming, or even that it can help with the mess that is existing law.
We are instead hoping the Congress will not actively make things worse.
Congress has fully abrogated its job to consider the downside risks of AI, including catastrophic and existential risks. It is fully immersed in jingoism and various false premises, and under the sway of certain corporations. It is attempting to actively prevent states from being able to do literally anything on AI, even to fix existing non-AI laws that have unintended implications no one wants.
We have no real expectation that Congress will be able to step up and pass the laws it is preventing the states from passing. In many cases, it can’t, because fixes are needed for existing state laws. At most, we can expect Congress to manage things like laws against deepfakes, but that doesn’t address the central issues.
On the sacrificial altars of ‘competitiveness’ and ‘innovation’ and ‘market share’ they are going to attempt to sacrifice even the export controls that keep the most important technology, models and compute out of Chinese hands, accomplishing the opposite. They are vastly underinvesting in state capacity and in various forms of model safety and security, even for straight commercial and mundane utility purposes, out of spite and a ‘if you touch anything you kill innovation’ madness.
Meanwhile, they seem little interested in addressing that the main actions of the Federal government in 2025 have been to accomplish the opposite of these goals. Where we need talent, we drive it away. Where we need trade and allies, we alienate our allies and restrict trade.
There is talk of permitting reform and helping with energy. That’s great, as far as it goes. It would at least be one good thing. But I don’t see any substantive action.
They’re not only not coming to save us. They’re determined to get in the way.
That doesn’t mean give up. It especially doesn’t mean give up on the fight over the new diffusion rules, where things are very much up in the air, and these Senators, if they are good actors, have clearly been snookered.
These people can be reached and convinced. It is remarkably easy to influence them. Even under their paradigm of America, Innovation, Race, we are making severe mistakes, and it would go a long way to at least correct those. We are far from the Pareto frontier here, even ignoring the fact that we are all probably going to die from AI if we don’t do something about that.
Later, events will overtake this consensus, the same way they the vibes have previously shifted at the rate of at least once a year. We need to be ready for that, and also to stop them from doing something crazy when the next crisis happens and the public or others demand action.