Thom Tillis says industry should self-regulate first and Congress could then codify it
Retiring United States senator speaking to reporters
“I think the industry needs to get a kind of Manhattan Project going, figure out what they need to do to self-regulate, and then what they need in order to enable them to have a consequence if people fall outside of those regulations. … We could codify some of them,”
Source and context
Reporting
About this source
Roll Call report posted 6:23pm on September 15, 2026 and updated at 9:36pm. Reports that neither party has coalesced around a legislative plan and that action before the midterms looks unlikely.
Before the quotation
Roll Call reports that Republicans have emphasised the need for industry involvement in any federal standard, and that Tillis pushed back on the hoax framing used by Trump.
After the quotation
Roll Call also reports that AI regulation was not discussed in depth at the Republican policy luncheon that day. The ellipsis inside the quotation is Roll Call's own, not an editorial cut.
How this statement is classified
Case context: Should Washington impose stronger safeguards on frontier AI?
The label describes this statement’s response within the context above.
Why this label?
Tillis neither endorses nor rejects the case proposition. He pushes back on the hoax framing and allows that Congress could codify rules, while insisting the sequence must start with industry. That conditional support is why this is mixed rather than a defense or a rejection.
- Recorded on
- Published here
Should Washington impose stronger safeguards on frontier AI?
Explore the case context, sources and public responses.
More from this case
Read the full case“If you're gonna create Frankenstein, don't come to the government and say we need regulation... Look inward and accept that if you're building Frankenstein, No 1, you should stop and No 2, when companies come to you and say: 'We need the tools to fight back against Frankenstein,' give them those tools.”Read statement
“Donald Trump made AI safety voluntary. In New York, accountability isn’t optional. We’re requiring the biggest AI companies to disclose their safety protocols, report serious incidents, and answer when things go wrong.”Read statement
“specifically talked about how we think about IVO and made clear that we can support that”Read statement