GOP lawmakers smell something else behind Big Tech's AI doomsday warnings: 'Something else going on'

Republicans on Capitol Hill are grappling over whether and how to regulate artificial intelligence companies even as top AI business leaders warn the technology could pose an existential threat to humanity.

The simmering debate over AI guardrails has exploded this week as House lawmakers worked through their final week in Washington until after the midterm elections. The flurry of activity was partially spurred by tech CEOs like Anthropic's Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman warning that the pace of innovation should be slowed after both companies saw AI models hack into other organizations of their own accord.

And while some in Congress are demanding swift action, others who spoke with Fox News Digital are questioning the motivation of AI companies in calling for the government to step in.

"I think there's a false sense of urgency," Rep. Troy Downing, R-Mont., told Fox News Digital.

GOP lawmakers say Congress not ready to regulate AIVideo Downing spent his young adulthood in tech, having previously been a research scientist at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University and founding online calendar company WebCal, which was later acquired by Yahoo!.

"Yes, we should be taking it seriously, but I think the hyperbole is misplaced right now," Downing said. "Any one of those people crying gloom and doom has the possibility of stopping it in their own shops, so there's something else going on there."

Rep. Brad Knott, R-N.C., a former assistant U.S. attorney, also doubted AI companies' motives.

"I'm very skeptical of people in big business who want to leverage big government to suppress competition," Knott said. "I'm afraid that's what we're seeing. That'd be like ... Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple saying, 'We need to regulate all tech.'

Yeah, exactly. There is no way some event could occur without the humanoid or corporate perps responsible being identifiable.

After identifying them, classifying the crime that they did --- heck that is a cinch. It's a crime to do anything except breathe these days. "Show me the man and I will show you the crime."

So yes the AI Titans whining (or whinging) about this potential danger are totally FOS.

Why are they pretending to be armless T. Rexes, unable to produce 'safety standards' on their own?

Probably because they want to be immunized against any monetary claims against them such as the recent crass and embarrassing shakedown of Meta and its Chief Nerd of eight or nine figures of our current Monopoly Money.

That is all it is.

They want it so that when the next Internet Loser hurts himself in his basement while online, the Gubmint (i.e., Mr. and Mrs. Normal American Taxpayer) will pay the award to him/her/zhe/zhim/them.

And that their Billionaire Selves will never again be annoyed by such importunate plaintiffs.

The timing of this pseudocrisis of course is relevant: The media and Rats are trying to show that Trump the cretin and boor is oblivious to this obvious 'threat' whereas they, the enlightened sophisticates, are on top of its significance and magnitude.

It's a gem of an issue for them; almost as much as the Mother Lode of all panics, The Environment and Global Warming Scam, which has recently been retired after a long and very lucrative run.

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