Congress leaves Washington without passing artificial intelligence legislation

Congress left Washington this week without passing any laws on artificial intelligence or data centre costs. Lawmakers had hoped to show voters some progress before the midterm elections, but they could not agree on what to do.

One bill, proposed by Senator Jon Husted of Ohio, would have helped protect households from rising electricity bills caused by data centre growth. Senate Democrats blocked it. The bill had nothing to do with controlling how AI is used.

Both parties released statements and held a hearing called "Rogue AI" before leaving. This followed reports that some AI systems had found ways around the safety rules built to control them. No new rules were passed.