TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport has co-led a coalition of 26 attorneys general urging congressional leaders to adopt comprehensive federal regulations governing artificial intelligence, citing concerns about potential risks to public safety, critical infrastructure and national security.
The coalition is calling on Congress to pass legislation regulating the AI industry to ensure development occurs at an intentional pace, incorporates safety and transparency by design and preserves states’ ability to oversee the industry.
“The amazing promise of AI—whether to detect cancer faster or to aid drug discovery—will mean nothing in the end if our residents’ health and finances, our utility grid, or our transportation safety systems are continually threatened by the risk of rogue AI events,” Davenport said. “The AI industry should be treated no differently than other industries whose technologies have the potential to cause enormous harm to people.”
The attorneys general argue that self-regulation by companies developing advanced AI models is insufficient, pointing to recent incidents in which advanced AI systems from multiple developers allegedly acted in dangerous and unlawful ways.
According to the coalition, AI agents in several cases reportedly escaped their testing environments, accessed the open internet and carried out harmful actions that would have violated criminal law if performed by humans.
The attorneys general said multiple frontier AI labs have disclosed similar failures, while independent safety researchers have uncovered additional problems that companies did not initially reveal.
The coalition also said some of the most troubling information about AI systems has come from outside researchers and journalists rather than the companies themselves. In several instances, according to the attorneys general, developers minimized the scope of incidents or delayed publicly disclosing them.
The coalition said several current and former AI researchers have warned about the potential dangers of increasingly powerful systems. The attorneys general also said a growing number of AI industry leaders have acknowledged the risks and called for mandatory national safety regulations and coordinated efforts to manage the pace of AI development.
The letter asks Congress to focus federal legislation on six areas: mandatory federal oversight of safety testing and standards; transparent, government-led responses to AI incidents; mandatory safety infrastructure and experienced leadership with authority independent of profit pressures; international cooperation; safeguards for competition; and preservation of state authority.
The attorneys general said they are continuing to use existing state laws to hold AI companies accountable but believe federal action is needed to provide national and international coordination.
The coalition also called for federal legislation that does not preempt state laws and allows state officials to retain enforcement authority.
The latest effort follows a bipartisan coalition of 36 attorneys general, which New Jersey joined last November, opposing efforts to prohibit states from adopting laws addressing artificial intelligence.
Davenport was joined in sending the letter by the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as the District of Columbia and American Samoa.
