Scott Wiener Wins Pelosi Seat, Pushes Federal AI Rules After $3 Million-Backed Campaign
Updated
Updated · MIT Technology Review · Nov 9
Scott Wiener Wins Pelosi Seat, Pushes Federal AI Rules After $3 Million-Backed Campaign
3 articles · Updated · MIT Technology Review · Nov 9
Summary
Scott Wiener said hours after clinching Nancy Pelosi’s open San Francisco House seat that he wants Congress to move quickly on AI regulation and could seek a central role if lawmakers form a select AI committee.
A METR report released a day earlier, widely read as showing Anthropic reached recursive self-improvement, sharpened his warning that Congress is running out of time to prevent loss of control over advanced AI.
Wiener points to his California record—SB 1047 was vetoed, while the lighter SB 53 was signed—as a model for federal rules including a dedicated regulator, whistleblower protections, audits and a kill-switch requirement.
More than $3 million from AI-regulation nonprofit Public First Action became a campaign issue, but Wiener rejected claims he is too close to industry and said the support reflected his early push to regulate AI over Big Tech objections.
He is only cautiously optimistic about national action, citing Congress’s weak tech-regulation record, Trump’s dismissal of catastrophic AI risk and the need for U.S.-China cooperation that he says remains unlikely.