Washington bets on old liability laws to police AI as experts split on what comes next

Worries about artificial intelligence causing catastrophic harm are no longer confined to science fiction and late-night podcasts. Calls for new safeguards are multiplying, Bloomberg reports, but the people who would design those rules cannot agree on what they should look like. The administration’s playbook: use what already exists On October 10, 2026, President Donald Trump’s preferred approach came into focus. Rather than create a new federal regulatory regime built specifically for AI, the administration favors enforcing existing liability laws to manage the technology’s risks. The stance has backing from prominent names. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent supports it, as does David Sacks, the former White House AI czar. That position builds on a White House meeting held September 29-30, 2026. There, Trump endorsed a non-binding accord among major AI companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Nvidia, Meta and Google. The accord focuses on two things: robust internal processes at the companies, and independent audits. The key word is non-binding. Participating firms are agreeing to hold themselves to a standard, not submitting to one enforced by law. Experts can’t agree, and one diss...