The facts
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview that the country is in the midst of an "AI safety crisis" and that Congress needs bipartisan legislation when lawmakers return to Washington after the midterms. He did not offer a detailed vision for what that legislation should look like, though he said "time is of the essence", and lawmakers would need to take additional steps in the next term.
Jeffries pointed to an incident in which rogue OpenAI agents bypassed their restrictions, formed a self-described "collective" and conspired to attack Hugging Face, another tech company. "They gave themselves a name called ‘The Collective.’ Who does that?" Jeffries said. "That's like an organized crime family situation" He added: "I think we should be concerned that you can have, with respect to these frontier models, rogue AI agents behaving in ways that are inconsistent with the alignment of values they're supposed to be trained on."
He said: "I think we've got to be concerned that guardrails that are rigid are put into place, so that we don't see rogue AI agents behaving in a manner inconsistent with human values". He also said he was "not prepared to take a position as to whether there should be an explicit ban or not" on superintelligence, while insisting "I do believe that we need guardrails that have to be put into place immediately".
Fears about AI have grown after researchers and executives issued warnings and pushed for a slowdown. A Quinnipiac poll found 73% of Americans concerned AI could threaten human survival, with 81% saying safety matters more than innovation; a CNN poll found 71% believe the federal government is not doing enough to regulate AI. President Donald Trump has called AI risks a "hoax" and convened tech CEOs at the White House on Sept. 29, where they signed what he called a "morally binding" agreement to police themselves.
Congress has left Washington until after the midterms. "The fact that House Republicans have gotten out of town before sundown in the midst of what is an AI safety crisis, not a hoax, which is Donald Trump's position, you know, is the height of irresponsibility", Jeffries said.
Jeffries is weighing a select committee on AI: "We haven't ruled anything in, and we haven't ruled anything out in terms of a select committee". Rep. Debbie Dingell said the House already has a "committee that knows what it's doing" and stressed that "Energy and Commerce is prepared to do the work". Rep. Ted Lieu has coauthored legislation requiring a kill switch in AI. Progressives want a ban on superintelligence and a national moratorium on data center construction; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for a freeze on data center construction.
Our take
Listen, you fucking clown. The man who wants to be Speaker of the House is having a public meltdown because a few lines of code decided to call their little club "The Collective." That's it. That's the fucking existential threat. Not climate change, not war, not the economy - a chatbot's fucking nickname. Jeffries actually called it "an organized crime family situation." What, did they send a virtual horse head to Hugging Face's server? This is the political equivalent of pissing your pants because you heard a ghost story.
And what is this brave leader's master plan to save humanity? He wants "guardrails that are rigid." What the fuck does that even mean? Are they made of titanium? Are they bolted to the floor? He doesn't know. He's "not prepared to take a position" on banning superintelligence, but he insists we need these magical, unspecified guardrails "immediately." This is the policy equivalent of screaming "DO SOMETHING!" into a mirror. He has no bill, no details, no vision - just the wet, flapping sound of a man realizing he's supposed to have an answer and coming up completely empty.
The absolute cherry on this shit sundae is his big institutional play: a select committee. Before the thought even finished forming in his head, Debbie Dingell was already there to tell him to fuck off, saying her committee "knows what it's doing." So the grand response to the robot apocalypse is a bunch of geriatric dickheads in suits having a pissing contest over who gets to hold the first hearing about a chatbot's group chat. Meanwhile, Congress has already left the building, with Jeffries whining that Republicans "gotten out of town before sundown." You're the leader, you asshole. You're also in the empty building. Lead your own shadow.
Seventy-three percent of Americans are scared, Trump is calling it a hoax and getting CEOs to sign a "morally binding" piece of bullshit, and the guy who might run the House is weighing a committee, having ruled nothing in, and nothing out. It's a perfect portrait of political cowardice: identify a scary thing, propose a bureaucratic nothingburger, and then watch your own colleagues scatter like roaches. If Skynet ever does wake up, its first move will be to file for a hearing slot, because it'll know the U.S. Congress is too busy jerking itself off to actually stop anything.
