‘Hands Off AI’: New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker Calls for Congress to Act on AI Safety, Drawing Online Backlash

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) posted a Senate floor video on X urging Congress to act on AI safety and asking President Trump to convene a special session before Congress leaves Washington, citing a July 2023 letter to the White House in which he advocated "rigorous pre-deployment testing of advanced models," "independent evaluations and audits," and stronger requirements for securing frontier model weights. Booker also called for an entity "like" the National Transportation Safety Board to investigate AI incidents and said Congress should "put the brakes on the development of capabilities whose risks outrun our ability to manage them," arguing the technology's role should be decided by "the people," not "the tech billionaires or trillionaires." The request for a special session is not independently confirmed as accepted, and online reaction was mixed, with some users backing the warning and others asking why Booker has not advanced a bill or questioning whether Congress should hold more power over AI.

Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey https://thenerdstash.com/tag/new-jersey/ posted a Senate floor video on X calling for AI safety measures and urging Congress to act, after asking President Trump https://thenerdstash.com/tag/donald-trump/ to convene a special session in Washington. According to the post, Booker said he has pressed the issue for several years. Online users reacted skeptically, questioning why a sitting senator is calling for action instead of advancing a bill and whether Congress should have more control over AI. The video shows Booker saying he has “been calling for safety interventions for years,” citing a July 2023 letter to the White House https://www.booker.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/senator cory booker response to wh ostp rfi re national ai strategy.pdf . In the clip, he lists steps he says he advocated then, including “rigorous pre-deployment testing of advanced models, ” “independent evaluations and audits,” and “strengthen ing requirements for securing frontier model weights.” He also calls for an entity “like” the National Transportation Safety Board to investigate AI incidents and to “prepare for the potential emergence of AI systems capable of autonomously improving themselves.” He closes that stretch by saying Congress should “put the brakes on the development of capabilities whose risks outrun our ability to manage them,” and that the role of the technology should be decided by “the people,” “not the tech billionaires or trillionaires.” The footage does not show other senators responding on the floor. According to his office, the same speech asked President Trump to convene a special session before Congress leaves Washington; that request is not independently confirmed as having been accepted. Safety First, or Hands Off? What People Are Saying Some users backed the warning. One commenter wrote, “Couldn’t agree more.” Another said, “Senator Booker is right,” while adding that safety rules should be paired with digital rights. An AI safety account replied https://x.com/aisafetyaction/status/2100805092383621417?s=20 , “Thank you for raising the alarm,” and called existential safety a “transpartisan issue.” Other viewers questioned the timing and who should set the rules. One asked, “Who is he calling? He’s a member of Congress. Where is his bill? Where was it when Biden was in office?” Another wrote, “Why give them more power over the most important technology of our lifetime?” Separate comments urged “Hands off AI” and warned that limits could help China, while one user asked Booker to specify “what kinda of ‘safety measures’” he has in mind. For now, Booker’s floor remarks sit inside a broader fight over whether Congress will set federal AI rules before it leaves Washington. Online, the clip continues to draw both support for acting on safety and questions about who should hold the power to do so.