As warnings rapidly mount over the pace and potential dangers of artificial intelligence development, the top Republican and Democrat in the House agreed on Sunday that Congress should put guardrails in place, but would not commit to specific policies or a timeline for doing so.
Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, urged caution in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” saying that the House could not hastily pass regulations and that lawmakers needed to ensure American companies remain competitive with Chinese A.I. firms.
“We’re not going to rush in and pass a piece of legislation that would do harm to the country and put China at an edge,” Mr. Johnson, who controls what legislation comes to the House floor, said. “And so we’ve got to do this carefully.”
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, criticized Mr. Johnson for moving too slowly, saying in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that the House should take “decisive action.” But when he was asked for specific restrictions that he might back, Mr. Jeffries would not elaborate.
“Well, we’ll have that conversation this week upon our return,” he said. Mr. Jeffries is considered the leading contender to become speaker if Democrats take control of the House after the midterm elections.
The House will return to Washington on Monday for what is scheduled to be its final week in session before November’s midterm elections, a short timeline that makes it nearly impossible for lawmakers to quickly adopt a comprehensive framework for A.I. regulations.
Though politicians from both parties have warned about the need to regulate A.I. development, the drumbeat of ominous warnings about the technology has increased significantly in recent weeks. Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic, resigned on Tuesday, saying in social media posts that he believed that the top A.I. companies were not developing the technology responsibly.
On Saturday, Anthropic’s chief executive, Dario Amodei, called for tech companies to slow the pace of their development in the face of worries about the technology’s safety. Several other tech executives — including Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk, the billionaire whose company SpaceX has been increasing its spending on A.I. — said they backed that effort.
Worries over A.I.’s dangers are rising as an issue in the midterm elections, and former President Barack Obama, in a fund-raising event last week, implored Democrats to develop clear positions on how to address risks the technology poses to safety and the economy.
Mr. Johnson acknowledged the issue was significant. But he pointed out that even Mr. Amodei and his competitors did not agree on the best approach and said that they should play a part in the development of any regulatory framework.
“I think the first step is to have a meeting of all the platform providers,” he said. “I’ve talked to the president about this and others. I believe that’s the next step.”
Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said on “Fox News Sunday” that the Trump administration was “studying” efforts on Capitol Hill to regulate A.I., including a push to create a “kill switch” that would allow the government to order rogue models to be shut down.
But even as he acknowledged that A.I. has advanced so rapidly that it is capable of undermining existing cybersecurity protections, Mr. Hassett joined Mr. Johnson in endorsing the involvement of the private sector in any efforts to slow the pace of development.
Mr. Johnson also warned that any excessive regulations on A.I. risked restraining American companies and empowering Chinese firms, an argument that President Trump also made on Sunday when speaking to reporters in Ireland, where he was attending a tournament at one of his golf resorts.
“Look, we’re leading China in A.I.,” Mr. Trump said. “We can put guardrails, we can do this and that, but I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up. And they’re bringing up things that won’t happen. But whoever wins with A.I., wins.”
Many Democrats have argued that Congress should not be letting tech executives take the lead in regulating their own technology. After Mr. Johnson declined to renew a bipartisan task force on artificial intelligence, House Democrats established their own A.I. commission that Mr. Jeffries said would soon present “an aggressive framework.”
A group of lawmakers also circulated a letter last week urging Mr. Johnson to cancel their scheduled recess until lawmakers advanced A.I. regulations.
Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, said in a CNN interview that Congress was moving too slowly to address the issue. He also dismissed concerns over China.
“We can’t just use this idea that if we do this we somehow are going to lose to China,” Mr. Gallego said on “State of the Union.” “Because A.I. does not care once it becomes fully dangerous whether we’re Chinese or American. That’s the danger of this.”
Ian Fisher contributed reporting.
