Khanna calls for a government agency to oversee AI ‘like the FDA’

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Sunday said that the federal government should create a regulatory agency to oversee the development of artificial intelligence, similar to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

“Well, we need to set up an AI agency like the FDA,” Khanna told host Margaret Brennan on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

“I mean, I don’t know what President Trump’s vision is, I don’t know if he’s using AI in an offensive capability, which would give me a lot of pause,” he added.

The congressman paraphrased Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “Godfather of AI,” in stressing that AI must be regulated “like we regulate nuclear energy, electricity, aviation; have independent technical experts make sure AI is safe.”

“One of the things that really annoys me is when you have these tech CEOs out there saying, ‘Oh, this is too complicated. People in Washington don’t understand this.’ Give me a break. We have regulated very complex things. We know we can appoint independent smart people from universities. This is not complicated.”

Brennan replied that Congress “hasn’t regulated a lot of things or come forward with much legislation of late.”

Khanna has sent letters to AI companies like DeepSeek and Alibaba to follow the U.S.’s lead on the slowdown of the technology’s advancement until there are guardrails, Brennan pointed out.

“Winning an AI war is like winning a nuclear war,” Khanna replied. “It is catastrophic for civilization. And what we have asked is that they agree to some basic terms. Look, there are two dangers to AI — either the loss of control or misuse. And the Chinese firms have taken no actions on either of them.”

The California Democrat emphasized that there needs to be an “international agreement” with Chinese President Xi Jinping “to have basic standards that should include international monitoring” and checks through data centers.

Xi is expected to meet with President Trump at Joint Base Andrews for a state visit on Wednesday.

“Now, obviously, you can’t just trust the Chinese, but like any agreement, like an arms control agreement, as [former President] Reagan said, you need to trust and verify, and the world has done this before,” Khanna added.

Bipartisan lawmakers have raised the alarm on limiting AI after a former Anthropic researcher suggested the technology could become an existential threat to human life.

Trump dismissed this as a hoax but said he will establish an “AI Force,” similar to the Space Force, and an “AI czar” where “Only High I.Q. individuals need to apply!” without providing further details.

Other critics have said the president is not doing enough to address AI. Former President Obama said the suggestion from a White House adviser that the market will “take care” of AI went against regulatory practices in place for airlines, drug companies and food companies.

Obama added that a “ voluntary industry restraint ” to slow AI’s advancement until the White House and Congress can come up with a solution was “the best we can do now.”