The United States isn’t sleepwalking into an artificial intelligence crisis — it is running toward one, a Democratic senator warned Monday.
The alert came when CNN host Kasie Hunt asked Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) on “The Arena” whether the country had “basically sleepwalked into a crisis.”
“Well, Kasie, it’d be hard to say we’re sleepwalking when we’re actively running into a crisis,” Coons replied.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee member pointed to the speed of AI’s development and the billions of dollars pouring into new data centers.
“We cannot afford to miss this moment,” Coons said, arguing that Congress failed to regulate social media adequately before it transformed American life.
Coons also pointed to calls for safeguards from leading AI executives, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and xAI’s Elon Musk.
“I think that they are scared by their own inventions,” Coons said. “Whether you take it at face value or not, the fact that all three…are calling for the same thing, which hasn’t happened before, should be a moment that galvanizes us to action.”
Coons warned that AI could drive up utility costs, strain water supplies and eliminate jobs while enriching its leaders.
“What I hope Congress is capable of,” he said, “is coming together and responding before we have a disaster on our hands.”
President Donald Trump on Monday issued a series of social media posts downplaying the AI threat. He called himself the country’s “hoax buster” and dismissed concerns that AI could threaten humanity.
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