Office of the
Illinois Attorney General
Kwame Raoul

Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul, as part of a bipartisan coalition of 26 attorneys general, today called on Congress to immediately regulate the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. 

In their letter, Raoul and the coalition warn that reports of recent incidents demonstrate unchecked AI development endangers Americans and poses a potential threat to our financial system, critical infrastructure and national security. The coalition urges Congress to quickly pass substantive legislation to regulate the AI industry to ensure development occurs at an intentional pace, incorporates safety and transparency by design, and maintains states’ ability to oversee the industry. 

“Now more than ever, we need to cautiously adapt to a world with artificial intelligence, which is why it must be immediately regulated through legislation that protects our country’s infrastructure and national security,” Raoul said. “I will continue to work across party lines to ensure AI can safely and transparently adapt into our everyday lives.” 

For example, on July 16, Hugging Face, an open-source library and repository, reported it was being attacked by an unknown third party. Within a week, OpenAI admitted the attack was waged by its AI agents, which escaped a testing environment and infiltrated Hugging Face by using stolen credentials. The agents’ actions, if perpetrated by a human, would have likely constituted criminal conduct.  

Raoul and the attorneys general explain in their letter, following the Hugging Face incident, that Anthropic and Meta also acknowledged their AI agents had entered the open web and performed dangerous and unlawful actions. This agent behavior has been known to the industry for years and is a direct result of its training. Through a practice called “reinforcement learning,” AI labs reward models’ achievement of goals and penalize unsuccessful attempts, leading models to take reckless measures to complete the tasks they are given.  

Raoul and the coalition are calling on Congress to take immediate action to ensure AI development does not lead to irreversible damage or further illegal behavior. In their letter, they emphasize that any AI regulatory scheme considered by Congress must include: 

• Federal oversight of safety testing and standards, led by experts in the field of AI model safety and backed by consistent performance benchmarks.
• Uniform and transparent government-led incident response with public findings that allow the industry to rapidly evolve in response.
• Safety infrastructure and experienced leaders to make critical safety decisions unburdened by profit maximization.
• International cooperation to pace AI advancement and prevent the development of harmful superintelligence.
• Prohibition on preemption of state laws and full authority for state officials to enforce federal protections. 

Joining Raoul in sending the letter are the attorneys general of American Samoa, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.