Thune wants to "codify" AI safeguards after Trump's AI summit
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune welcomed the new "constitution" that President Trump and tech and AI leaders signed Tuesday but said he would work to "codify" some safety protections with legislation.
Why it matters: Thune and other GOP senators aren't directly challenging Trump's preference for industry-led safeguards. But they suggest yesterday's accord — which Trump called "morally binding" — might not be enough.
- "I think this is good," Thune (R-S.D.) told Axios on Wednesday. "This is certainly a step in the right direction."
- "We are continuing to have those conversations up here on whether or not we can come up with some sort of a legislative framework that would codify some safety protections too," he said.
The intrigue: There's an undercurrent of skepticism in the Senate GOP about AI and the frontier labs.
- "I'm not saying they don't care about humanity, but they also care — I'll give you three letters: I-P-O — and they care about profits," said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).
- "I pretty much trust them like a rest-stop bathroom," Kennedy said.
Between the lines: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was at the White House meeting, sitting at a table with some of the world's wealthiest and most powerful tech executives.
- Thune was not, but he had a separate meeting Monday night in his Senate office with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, one of the industry's leading advocates for regulating frontier AI.
Zoom in: Thune has been more assertive than Johnson about the need for Congress to regulate the AI industry.
- "I do think that the threats are real," Thune told Axios last week. "I think you have to have at least some sort of a plan and some guardrails around it."
- Johnson appears to favor a more hands-off approach: "The challenge has been that finding consensus on all of this in Congress is very difficult. The technology changes rapidly," Johnson said Tuesday.
- "The White House and Congress will continue to guide the industry's development in a safe manner," Johnson said. "Congress is going to keep steady hands at the wheel on this."
The bottom line: Some of Thune's GOP colleagues agree Congress needs to act, while others favor Trump's laissez-faire approach.
- "You have to have the strength of statute and law and regulation," said Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.). "Like for any other industry, this is not unique to super intelligence."
- "Ultimately, the companies have got to do the right thing themselves," said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.).
- "Do I have confidence Congress would craft the right solution on AI? Not really," said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). "In the end, I think what we need to do is preserve competition."
- "Congress should do something too, rather than sit back and spectate," said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).
