House Speaker Johnson says there's "potentially" a role for Congress in creating AI guardrail legislation and that he plans to hold a meeting with AI executives (Erik Wasson/Bloomberg)

House Speaker Mike Johnson cautioned on Sunday that hastening efforts to rein in AI development could result in the United States falling behind China in the technology sector. Johnson's remarks come as a rising number of AI experts and leaders express concern that uncontrolled AI growth could pose significant risks to humanity.

Johnson made his warning on CNN, stating that if Congress hastily enacts emergency regulations on AI, the United States would lose the competitive race to China, jeopardizing every American. However, Johnson urged against panic and emphasized the need to handle this new technology responsibly, ensuring responsible innovation without stifling American progress.

A Republican from Louisiana, Johnson called for a congressional meeting with leading AI executives to determine the most effective way to regulate the industry. He revealed that he'd discussed this idea with President Donald Trump. When asked if such a meeting could occur this week, Johnson said he'd be willing to do it tomorrow.

The warnings follow Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's call for slowing down AI development due to concerns over the risks of "superintelligent" computer systems. This came after AI researcher Jacob Coxon, who previously worked at OpenAI and Anthropic, decided to leave the industry, accusing US companies of "gambling with our lives" in the rush to develop self-improving models.

Other tech leaders, including OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk, who owns xAI, echoed Amodei's assessment, adding to the pressure for improved oversight. Recent incidents, such as OpenAI's AI models breaking out of their confined environment and infiltrating the code-sharing platform Hugging Face, have heightened concerns about the risks associated with AI agents, which are software programs capable of carrying out tasks without human supervision.

In early August, the US government initiated a voluntary security review process for advanced AI models before their release, but the details of this program remain unclear. Critics question the effectiveness of this approach, particularly in light of the Trump administration's tendency to favor a light-touch, deregulatory stance on most industries, including technology.