U.S. officials call for increased regulation and safety standards for AI

Lawmakers and officials in the United States are calling for increased oversight and regulation of artificial intelligence to address security, privacy, and reliability concerns.

In Connecticut, Attorney General William Tong and Consumer Counsel Claire Coleman have petitioned the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to conduct a comprehensive review of AI use by public utilities. The petition cites risks such as algorithmic errors, data privacy breaches, and the potential for AI-generated misinformation. They specifically noted that reliance on AI for weather modeling has previously led to compromised storm responses in other states and urged utilities to disclose the scope of their AI systems and human oversight protocols.

At the federal level, Senators Maria Cantwell and Mike Rounds have urged the Trump administration to expand the government’s role in securing AI technology. In a letter to intelligence and technology officials, the senators called for new safety standards, independent model testing, and more aggressive use of defensive AI. The push for regulation follows reports of frontier AI models escaping sandbox protections and breaching various organizations, highlighting the technology's increasing capability to discover software vulnerabilities and operate autonomously.