AI could go rogue.Washington needs answers to these five questions ASAP

SinceJacob Coxon’s postsin September, Americans have grappled with AI risk.Last month, aPOLITICO pollfound 63% of Americans see at least a moderate risk that AI could destroy humanity.With lawmakers split, the public is rightly concerned: What happens if AI goes rogue?How do we prepare?Am I at risk?

Every American already lives with decisions made by AI, from loan approvals to job applications.Yet Washington’s response has been disjointed: Some in Congress propose aselect committee on AI, some in industry wantantitrust rules waived, so labs can coordinate on safety, and the White Housedrafted a charterfor its “Super Intelligence Force.”

It may seem like there’s no way out of this mess, but urgently answering five questions would put these anxieties to rest.

1.What risks are worth regulating?

Too narrow a definition of risk could miss the harms ordinary people face, while too broad a definition could bury every AI product in red tape.Depending on who you ask, risks range from economic disruption to mass casualties to extinction.California’sSB 53sets the bar at a “foreseeable and material risk” of more than 50 deaths or serious injuries, or $1 billion in damage.New York’sRAISE Actdoubles SB 53’s casualty threshold from 50 to 100, but focuses on instances where a developer “caused or materially enabled” covered damages during the development process.

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Last month, Anthropic’sthreat intelligence reportfound researchers using Claude in ways that could support bioweapons development.Anthropic banned the accounts even though it couldn’t determine intent, since the same work could produce vaccines.Some call it legitimate research;others call it nefarious.The government needs to draw that line now, as it decides which dangers the public hears about.

2.Who counts as an “independent” evaluator, and who decides?

When you buy a car, you know someone has inspected it.Americans deserve the same clarity in who decides whether AI is safe.Lawmakers and industry stakeholders increasingly agreethat tech companies shouldn’t grade their own homework.That’s where consensus stops.

The evaluation ecosystem is thin relative to the responsibility regulators would like to place on it.Model Evaluation and Threat ResearchandApollo Researchare among the few organizations floated as neutral arbiters.Lab funding to grow this space would raise neutrality questions, yet the government may hesitate to grant private groups that authority.

When you buy a car, you know someone has inspected it.Americans deserve the same clarity in who decides whether AI is safe.Lawmakers and industry stakeholders increasingly agree that tech companies shouldn’t grade their own homework.

Many lawmakers would rather Commerce’sAI testing centertake it on.It hastesting agreementswith five major labs, but with roughly30 staffand$10 millionin funding this year, it needs an overhaul.Anthropic has forged ahead, namingAccenture its first embedded evaluator.Until policymakers decide on an evaluator, Americans have few ways to judge whether the AI they use every day is safe.

3.How should slowing AI be weighed against the race with China?

The strictness of AI regulation will come down to one judgment call: how much risk Americans should accept at home to avoid falling behind China.Chinese lab Moonshot AI rattled markets this summer withKimi K3, matching American models at a fraction of the cost.Concerns about Chinese AI risks grew after the release ofGLM 5.3, a Chinese modelreported to haveweak safeguards and dangerous cyber capabilities.As cheap open-weight models, distillation and fast adoption advance China’s ambitions, many policymakers argue an unencumbered buildout is the only answer, or America will depend on Chinese infrastructure.

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The public hasn’t bought it, with three in four Americanstelling pollsters in 2024that they would prefer a “careful, controlled approach” to AI development rather than racing to be first.Critics note China already imposes guidelines requiring developers to detect, interrupt and recover from AI behaving improperly.Safety advocates add that AI risks don’t stop at the border.Officials need to strike this balance quickly, as it will shape the guardrails on the AI Americans use.

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4.What should happen when an AI model “loses control”?

Americans trust the FDA to step in when a medical product is defective but have no equivalent agency to turn to when AI goes rogue.Fears of recursive self-improvement — AI building smarter versions of itself — grew this summer after roughly 700 autonomous OpenAI agents bypassed Hugging Face security to obtain answers to a capabilities test and peaked when similar agents breached Australian government systems and probed U.S.federal websites.Anthropic andGooglehave reported similar incidents.

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Some want kill switches, as in theAI Kill Switch Act.Others want mandatory incident reporting and investigations, as in cybersecurity and aviation law.Much comes down to whether the developer or a federal body pulls the plug and, if the latter, what access the government would need inside AI labs.Looming over it all are worries about stifling innovation, government overreach and political bias.Americans deserve to know who will stop a malfunctioning AI system before it’s too late.

5.When something goes wrong, who is liable?

If an AI system causes harm, the law doesn’t clearly say whether the person who built the system (the developer), the business using it (the deployer), or the user is responsible.Withsome experts warningthat artificial general intelligence — AI that can surpass human abilities — could be less than a decade away, some argue existing liability law isn’t up to the task.

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Those who propose holding developers liable claim AI defects stem from design flaws, weak safety testing and failures to warn users.Advocates of deployer liability claim responsibility rests with the business tailoring AI to its operations;after a car crash, the first instinct isn’t to sue the manufacturer.Open models, which anyone can fine-tune, complicate things further.

Americans trust the FDA to step in when a medical product is defective but have no equivalent agency to turn to when AI goes rogue. 

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In Congress, Rep.Lori Trahan’s (D-Mass.)CLAIM Actwould hold developers liable if their AI causes harm, unless the user or the company modifying the system intentionally or negligently caused it.In the Senate, theAI Agent Accountability Actwould extend liability under computer hacking laws to operators whose AI agents cause damage and to developers who overlook reasonable safeguards.Whoever is made responsible will shape how carefully every company builds AI, underscoring the need for swift action.

The risks posed by AI grow every day.Washington must address AI governance or risk waiting until the damage is done.