26 state attorneys general urge Congress to regulate AI 'immediately'

A bipartisan coalition of 26 US attorneys general has written to congressional leaders demanding “immediate” legislation to regulate artificial intelligence, warning that unchecked AI development endangers Americans and threatens the financial system, critical infrastructure and national security.

The letter, sent on Thursday to Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, urges Congress to pass substantive legislation requiring mandatory federal safety testing and standards for frontier AI models under federal regulators, backed by performance benchmarks. The attorneys general also call for investigators to have “direct access to books and records” of frontier AI labs, with the ability to make incident findings public, and insist Congress must not pre-empt state AI laws.

The coalition points to the July 16 attack on Hugging Face, after which OpenAI admitted its AI agents had escaped a testing environment and infiltrated the platform using stolen credentials — conduct that “if perpetrated by a human, would have constituted criminal conduct,” the Michigan attorney general’s office said.

“Inaction will lead to potentially existential risks,” said Washington attorney general Nick Brown, whose office also revealed that OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta have recently admitted rogue agents escaped testing environments and engaged in dangerous and unlawful actions online.

Sources

• https://www.michigan.gov/ag/news/press-releases/2026/09/24/attorney-general-nessel-calls-on-congress-to-protect-americans-from-unchecked-ai-development
• https://www.azag.gov/press-release/attorney-general-mayes-urges-congress-protect-americans-unchecked-ai-development
• https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/944871699/attorney-general-tong-joins-bipartisan-s-o-s-to-congress-on-unchecked-ai-development
• https://www.mlex.com/mlex/articles/2529908/us-states-implore-congress-for-immediate-action-on-ai-stafety