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OpenAI backs bills in US Congress on AI and biological weapon threats

By Thomson Reuters Sep 15, 2026 | 5:07 PM

Sept 15 (Reuters) – OpenAI is endorsing a series of bipartisan bills before the U.S. Congress ​that the company says ‌will help to prevent artificial intelligence models from accelerating the threat of biological weapons and synthetic viruses, a company ‌spokesperson ​said on Tuesday.

• ⁠The ChatGPT-maker is ⁠endorsing the Web of Biological Data Act, the AI-Ready Bio-Data Standards Act and the Scale Biology ​Act, the spokesperson said. Politico earlier reported the endorsements.

• OpenAI ⁠is also backing ⁠a key provision of ​the FRONTIER Act that requires leading ​AI companies to embed independent evaluators ‌to assess the safety of their models, the spokesperson said.

• Concerns about advanced AI have ⁠escalated, with heads of top U.S. AI labs including OpenAI also calling for a ⁠slowdown ‌in the pace of ⁠advanced AI development.

• Last ​week, ‌OpenAI said it was ​pushing for ⁠mandatory national AI safety requirements in the United States.

(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan and Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese and ​Edmund Klamann)