Lawmakers Renew Push to Halt AI After Anthropic Researcher Resigns

Lawmakers answered the resignation of an Anthropic researcher by stepping up calls to pause advanced AI work, including a Senate measure that would outright forbid superintelligence.

Jacob Coxon left the company on September 9, accusing Anthropic and OpenAI of betting with people’s lives.

How a Researcher's Resignation Got Congress's Attention

Over 20 members of Congress responded to the thread, and the majority demanded fresh AI rules. Senator Bernie Sanders announced he would put forward a bill to halt AI work and ban superintelligence.

BeInCrypto noted that earlier this month, Sanders and Representative Greg Casar introduced the “Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act.” That legislation would make it permanently illegal to build or deploy superintelligent AI, and would freeze other advanced AI work until a federal agency develops safety rules.

Trump’s ignorance about AI is appalling and extremely dangerous.

No, Mr. President. We won’t have a “little gear” to protect humanity from the threat of an uncontrolled AI.

We must pause development NOW. https://t.co/EJdrhipHOe

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) September 9, 2026

Casar, for his part, described the situation as an emergency and requested hearings on Capitol Hill. Representative Lori Trahan directed her colleagues to the FRONTIER Act, a bipartisan measure she put forward in July alongside Representative Jay Obernolte.

“The FRONTIER Act establishes tiered requirements based on the size of a frontier AI developer, including model cards, risk-management frameworks, independent audits, incident reporting, and ongoing assessments. It also creates a uniform national standard for transparency, auditing, and reporting of catastrophic risk to prevent a patchwork of state regulations,” the announcement stated.

Senator Chris Van Hollen is seeking obligatory protections and immediate discussions with China. Representative Ted Lieu urged Republicans in leadership to advance the AI Kill Switch measure he introduced this year.

Breaking with the partisan trend, Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna called for a special congressional session dedicated to AI.

So far, at least 22 politicians responded directly to this tweet with calls for legislation to regulate AI:

2 governors, 7 senators, and 13 representatives. Highly partisan – all democrats except for three.

Here's the full list:
– Governor, IL (JB Pritzker – D)… https://t.co/owcrDOAlri

— Michael Adams (@m_adams) September 9, 2026

Coxon Says the Labs Themselves Want Rules

The push isn't coming only from politicians. AI companies have also been lobbying for oversight. Coxon said on CNN that the executives who ask Congress for regulation genuinely mean it. But he added that none of them believes competitors will be willing to slow down first.

“These people are also completely genuine when they are begging to be regulated… they find themselves in this scenario where they’re compelled to race towards building a deadly technology,” Coxon said.

In a separate September statement, Anthropic said the industry would be helped by a lawful and verifiable way to coordinate the pace of development.

What Coxon Sees as the Extinction Risk

This talk of pacing matters only because of what Coxon believes lies ahead. He described how an AI assigned the task of AI research would begin upgrading itself.

He cited Tuesday, when OpenAI's systems reportedly cracked a millennium problem entirely on their own.

The danger, in Coxon's view, is applying that same approach to AI itself. Models refine other models without human involvement, a situation he calls an “intelligence explosion.”

“Right now there’s no risk of extinction. The current models, the worst they can do is maybe hack into something, potentially cause a lot of damages in infrastructure… they’re not intelligent enough to outsmart us at the level that would lead to extinction,” Coxon said.

Coxon cautioned, though, that that same independent will, combined with much greater power, could create severe destruction. He listed attacks on key infrastructure and the creation of extinction-level bioweapons as possibilities.