Ro Khanna says Amodei doesn't go far enough and calls for a pause and criminal liability
Ro KhannaU.S. Representative for California's 17th congressional district, posting on his verified X account
Responding to Dario Amodei's announcement of his essay on pacing frontier AI development and Anthropic's commitment to give third-party evaluators permanent employee-level access, Rep. Ro Khanna said the proposal does not go nearly far enough. He called for pausing recursive self-improving AI and for criminal and civil liability for AI that causes damage, said technology executives use opaque jargon to keep the public in the dark, and asked Amodei to state his probability-of-doom estimate. His characterisation of industry leaders is his own.
“The tech lords act like priests who know Latin & keep the rest of us in the dark. Get beyond the opaque jargon and its pretty straightforward. Amodei doesn't go nearly far enough. We must pause recursive self improving AI. We must have criminal and civil liability for AI that damages us. What is your P(doom), probability of doom, number Dario?”
Original post
Where this statement fits
Should Washington impose stronger safeguards on frontier AI?
Washington's frontier-AI safeguards dispute continued beyond September's calls for legislation. On September 29, Trump and six companies signed an accord covering internal controls, outside evaluations and board oversight, with possible later codification. Trump defended self-regulation and existing federal powers. Critics including Jon Stewart and Tom Wheeler argue that company-led oversight is insufficient. An October 9 task-force statement describes reporting and remediation as mandatory, but does not specify enforcement mechanisms or penalties. The question remains whether Washington's approach supplies adequate, enforceable safeguards while allowing continued AI development.
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Original post
About this source
First-party post from Rep. Ro Khanna's verified X account at 12:29 PM ET on September 12, 2026, quote-posting Dario Amodei's announcement of his essay "We Must Pace the Frontier" and Anthropic's commitment to give third-party evaluators permanent employee-level access. Khanna's post was later paraphrased on The Bulwark Daily as Khanna saying AI executives "should all be in jail"; the post contains no such line, calling instead for criminal and civil liability for AI that causes damage, and that paraphrase is not recorded as his words. Rep. Nancy Mace replied to the post the following day, "China will not pause. China will eat our lunch," which is not yet recorded in this case.
Before the quotation
Amodei had published an essay arguing the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan, and said Anthropic was unilaterally committing to the first step by giving third-party evaluators permanent, employee-level access to its models. Researchers had recently resigned from AI labs warning that the industry was racing toward systems it could not control.
After the quotation
Rep. Nancy Mace replied the following day that China will not pause, a response not yet recorded in this case. Khanna's post was later paraphrased on The Bulwark Daily as saying AI executives should all be in jail; the post says no such thing.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
Khanna says Amodei's voluntary steps do not go far enough and calls for a pause and enforceable liability. He criticizes the adequacy of company-led safeguards.
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- Dario Amodei
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The Dispute Index. "Ro Khanna says Amodei doesn't go far enough and calls for a pause and criminal liability". First published: 2026-09-18. Last updated: 2026-10-12. https://disputeindex.com/events/993-responding-to-dario-amodei-s-announcement-of-his