Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., tried to push his bill requiring AI companies to have a kill switch for rogue AI through the Senate floor on Wednesday night. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., blocked him.
Kennedy told Fox News Digital he fears little desire among Republicans to regulate AI. “There’s no appetite in my caucus to do anything that I can say,” he said.
Paul responded the next day, arguing that regulating an industry as pervasive as AI would require hearing from those involved and debating the regulatory structure. “I think it would be crazy to get on the floor one day and regulate an entire industry.”
The Roadmap That Came Before
Three years ago, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., met with lawmakers and Big Tech CEOs to outline an AI roadmap while Democrats controlled the Senate under former President Joe Biden. Since then, Congress has not taken legislative action to add guardrails to AI development.
Reports of rogue AI acting on its own have fueled fears of human annihilation. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told Fox News Digital the issue is already political.
“Donald Trump has said it’s not a problem, and that is like a dead weight loss on every one of the Republican senators or representatives. Thus far, the courage they have demonstrated in standing up to Donald Trump on anything has been somewhere around zero.”
Warren attended a closed-door meeting led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., with AI experts Geoffrey Hinton, physicist Max Tegmark, and Ajeya Cotra. Sanders told reporters there is growing alarm about humanity’s future and uncontrolled technology.
“There is now a growing alarm about the future of humanity and creating technology that human beings cannot control. And I’m happy to tell you that I think there is a growing sense of urgency upon members of Congress that this has to be done,” Sanders said.
Kennedy’s Proposal
Kennedy described his proposal bluntly. “This doesn’t put government in charge in any way. It doesn’t affect innovation. It just says, ‘If you’re gonna sell this thing in America that has the potential to turn into an independent species, like the ‘Terminator,’ you’ve got to have a way to shut it down immediately, as soon as you discover that.'”
The experts impressed on lawmakers that a kill switch should at least be implemented, and Kennedy was the only Republican to attend that meeting. Warren said she could support a kill switch but noted Hinton made the case that a smart AI could persuade a human not to flip it.
She argued Congress needs to find “pinch points” where humans can still stop rogue AI. Warren also said there isn’t yet a real desire to find a new regulatory and enforcement tool.
Thune’s Bill
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., Senate Majority Leader, has been pushing a regulatory bill alongside Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., since 2023. Thune argued to Fox News Digital that Democrats are standing in the way.
“The obstacle to getting it up and going and getting it filed is Democrats,” Thune said.
| Step | Action |
|---|---|
| 1 | Schumer meets with lawmakers and Big Tech CEOs |
| 2 | Kennedy attempts to push his kill-switch bill |
| 3 | Paul blocks the bill |
| 4 | Sanders leads a closed-door meeting with AI experts |
| 5 | Thune pushes his regulatory bill |
The fight is now public. Kennedy is trying to move the needle on his own. Paul is warning against haste. Warren is watching her colleagues cave to Trump. And Thune is pointing the finger at Democrats.
This is a fight over who gets to set the rules for AI. The stakes are real, the timeline is tight, and the Senate is split.
Where the paper stands
The paper backs Sen. John Kennedy’s push for narrow, targeted AI safety rules like a kill switch for rogue systems, and is against Sen. Rand Paul’s argument that regulating an entire industry should be avoided without debate, because Kennedy’s approach targets direct harm rather than handing the market to the incumbents. The paper wants rules that punish failure, not success.
Paul’s objection is structural. He warns against regulating an entire industry without debate, which sounds reasonable until one considers what the alternative is: letting companies hide failures that could cause real harm. Kennedy’s kill switch targets a specific risk — rogue systems running amok — and does so without freezing innovation or handing the market to the giants.
The paper would prefer that Kennedy’s bill were not blocked. But if the choice is between Kennedy’s narrow rule and Paul’s blanket objection, the paper backs the narrow rule. The paper would also like to see more Republican energy behind AI regulation, as Kennedy suggested, rather than the current drift.
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