Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Sept. 30 called for new regulations holding artificial intelligence (AI) companies and users accountable for harm caused by AI agents, saying companies should bear responsibility when their products cause significant damage.
“At the end of the day, they’re a product,” Hawley said during a Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Disaster Management, District of Columbia, and Census hearing.
“If you make that product in a reckless kind of way, and that product causes … significant harm and damage – they crash a hospital ER, they shut down a bank so that folks can’t get their money – if that happens, then it’s the people who made it who should be responsible,” he said.
Hawley’s comments come after several AI company executives warned about the existential threat their technology could pose to humanity and called for government regulation. However, Hawley criticized the executives for also supporting measures he says would give AI companies an antitrust exemption, allow them to collaborate with one another, and give them a role in writing the regulations governing the industry.
“I’d just like to say to all of those proposals, ‘no, no, no,’” Hawley said. “No to the antitrust exemption. No to them writing the regulations. No to them colluding any further.”
Hawley did not weigh in on whether AI poses an existential threat to humanity, saying he did not know whether that assessment was accurate. Instead, he said that companies should not be able to claim that their products are out of control while also avoiding responsibility for the harm those products may cause.
“It’s time to talk about what we’re going to do to hold the companies, the product makers accountable rather than all of this talk about the end of the world, but don’t blame us,” he said.
Hawley outlines proposed legislation
Hawley said the “if you break it, you pay for it” principle should apply to AI companies. In a Washington Post op-ed Tuesday, he outlined legislation that would hold AI users and companies liable for harm caused by their AI agents.
“I am introducing legislation in Congress to make the corporations liable for the actions of their agents when they design the agents in a reckless fashion,” Hawley wrote. “My legislation would also make users liable when they deploy the agents in a reckless way.”
The proposal would also increase criminal penalties, according to Hawley. He said existing federal laws against hacking should apply to AI companies and that his legislation would allow prosecutors to charge companies when they know their agents are capable of criminal conduct and fail to create reasonable safeguards.
Hawley said the legislation would apply a similar standard to AI users. Users who knowingly deploy an AI agent and allow it to commit crimes, such as crashing systems or stealing data, would face criminal liability under his proposal.
“This plan builds on a fundamental principle of American law: You are responsible for the damage you cause,” Hawley wrote.
During the hearing, Hawley said the legislation would change the behavior of AI companies.
“If the AI companies who are developing and training these agents knew that they were going to be liable for the bad stuff their agents did, I am willing to predict, go out on a limb, and say that I think maybe they pay a little bit more attention to the development and training of these models,” he said.
It remains unclear when the legislation will be introduced. Hawley’s office did not respond to MeriTalk’s request for comment in time for publication.
Republicans differ on AI regulation
Hawley’s remarks marked a shift from many of his Republican colleagues, who have largely emphasized the need for the United States to remain competitive with China in AI development. President Trump has repeatedly rejected calls for more AI regulation.
During the hearing, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, acknowledged concerns about AI while emphasizing its potential uses and the need for continued innovation.
“I am of this position that we must continue to innovate. We must continue to develop our capabilities. What we don’t want to do is fall behind China,” she said.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., repeatedly said during the hearing that it’s critical that the “United States continue to be competitive with AI.”
Hawley’s comments followed a closed-door meeting Tuesday between the president and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and AI industry executives. During the meeting, they signed a commitment to certain AI safety principles, which Trump called “morally binding.”
The agreement, called the “White House Accord on Superintelligence Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities,” lays out a series of voluntary commitments for AI developers, Johnson explained.
The Trump administration recently began referring to AI as “super intelligence,” or “SI,” after Trump directed the executive branch to use the new terminology in official documents and communications.