Pelosi's Successor, Scott Wiener, Poised to Lead Federal AI Regulation

As a California state senator, Scott Wiener authored legislation aimed at curbing the risks of advanced AI. Now, after winning a tight congressional race for former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s open San Francisco seat, he could play a key role in setting federal AI policy. I spoke with Wiener on Friday, only a few hours after he had been declared the victor. But he was already thinking about AI risk. The previous day, the AI nonprofit METR had released a report that had been widely interpreted as evidence that Anthropic had achieved recursive self-improvement, a phenomenon in which AI meaningfully contributes to its own advancement and AI progress potentially spins out of control. “It’s very concerning,” Wiener said, citing the report as evidence that we are quickly running out of time to regulate AI. “It was my hope that Congress would take decisive action before [the end of] this year,” he said. “That does not appear to be happening.” Wiener has been increasingly focused on AI in recent years, and he’s made many of the AI safety movement’s concerns his own: During our 20-minute conversation, he used the phrase “recursive self-improvement” half a dozen times, for example. “We need to slow this down,” he says. “Because it’s moving very quickly, and we could sleepwalk into a disaster.” Wiener has already had real influence on AI policy. SB 1047, a bill that he authored in 2024, was set to become the first real piece of frontier AI legislation in the country before it was vetoed by California governor Gavin Newsom; he then sponsored SB 53, a lighter-touch bill that Newsom signed. Both bills have inspired proposed federal legislation. Wiener’s congressional campaign received over $3 million from Public First Action, a nonprofit in favor of AI regulation that receives substantial funding from Anthropic. That contribution led opponents to criticize him for being too close to the AI industry, but Wiener says that couldn’t be further from the truth.