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**SEPTEMBER 18, 2026**

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The latest panicky news cycle about so-called “AI safety” has many journalists and public figures begging politicians to legislate

**right now** on a subject that none of them really understand. It’s a recipe for shortsighted policy—and the latest example of why Congress suffers when it doesn’t have in-house, independent experts on science and technology. This piece calls for reviving the Office of Technology Assessment to help solve that problem, and for treating Congressional brain drain like the serious issue it is.

**–Max Moran, senior fellow, Revolving Door Project**

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Deagreez/iStock

What Congress Actually Needs to Do About AI: Staff Up [link removed]

It wasn’t so long ago that when a scary new technology burst onto the scene and raised uncomfortable new social questions, lawmakers knew just what to do: call their in-house tech think tank to get some perspective. 

In 1974, Congress established the Office of Technology Assessment, a nonpartisan advisory body that provided independent analysis of new scientific and technological issues, from acid rain to polygraph test accuracy. The OTA made sure that if lawmakers were curious about a nascent technology, they had a good source of information besides the industry itself. It was educational, non-ideological, and a resounding success. 

This, of course, infuriated the conservative movement. As part of the 1995 “Contract with America,” then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich shuttered the OTA, striking a crucial blow for ignorance, bias, and deference to private industry. Today, six of the largest technology companies collectively **employ** [link removed] one lobbyist for every 1.5 members of Congress. Layer on the gutting of local newsrooms due to a Google- and Meta-dominated ad market, plus a handful of **legacy outlets** [link removed] now **reshaped** [link removed] by **tech billionaires** [link removed] with their own **agendas** [link removed], and Congress has very few trustworthy sources of information. 

The result is a Congress that is frequently befuddled about technical matters, a problem that has seldom been more obvious than when it comes to so-called frontier artificial intelligence products. On September 8, an Anthropic employee named Jacob Coxon **publicly resigned** [link removed] and called for a nationwide “slowdown” in the development of so-called “frontier” AI models, claiming that these products could wipe out humankind by the end of the decade if we aren’t careful.

Sounds bad! Maybe Congress should step in and put the kibosh on this whole endeavor? Or is the whole thing just a publicity stunt to drive valuations even further? As it stands, Congress isn’t really equipped to answer these questions. Apparently, the only ones who know how to organize and regulate AI … is the AI industry itself.

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