US lawmakers seek new AI rules after Anthropic researchers warn of extinction risk

5 min readSep 11, 2026 02:27 PM IST

US lawmakers are calling for greater oversight of artificial intelligence amid warnings from AI safety researchers about the technology’s potential risks. (Image: Reuters)

Growing numbers of US lawmakers are calling for new rules to govern AI systems after dire warnings from two Anthropic researchers that rapidly progressing artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of the human race in the not-too-distant future.

Alarm about the potential harm from AI grew this week when Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon said he had resigned and that the “people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Anthropic scientist Evan Hubinger chimed in, saying Coxon was correct.

“We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans,” Hubinger wrote on X. “I personally think it is >10% within the next decade.”

The warnings ⁠follow cases ​of AI agents going rogue to hack external systems and AI safety researchers quitting their companies concerned about the technology’s risks. Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, have responded with alarm and calls for more action.

“Washington needs to wake up and take this seriously,” Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, said on X, referring to the risks of AI technology.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz, on the TV programme “The View”, pointed to legislation to regulate AI’s “catastrophic risks”. Cruz oversees a Senate committee with oversight of the US Commerce Department, the agency with in-house AI safety researchers.

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Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from ​Florida, in ​a post on X, called on House Speaker Mike Johnson to convene a “special session on ⁠AI”. The House is out this week on recess, with plans to return next week.

But US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he did not have any concerns about AI leading to human extinction.

The US this month pressed G20 members to take a hands-off approach to AI regulation.