Mr. Altman was joined at the hearing by Christina Montgomery, IBM’s chief privacy and trust officer, and Gary Marcus, a well-known professor and frequent critic of A.I. technology.

Mr. Altman said his company’s technology may destroy some jobs but also create new ones, and that it will be important for “government to figure out how we want to mitigate that.” Echoing an idea suggested by Dr. Marcus, he proposed the creation of an agency that issues licenses for the development of large-scale A.I. models, safety regulations and tests that A.I. models must pass before being released to the public.

“We believe that the benefits of the tools we have deployed so far vastly outweigh the risks, but ensuring their safety is vital to our work,” Mr. Altman said.

But it was unclear how lawmakers would respond to the call to regulate A.I. The track record of Congress on tech regulations is grim. Dozens of privacy, speech and safety bills have failed over the past decade because of partisan bickering and fierce opposition by tech giants.

The United States has trailed the globe on regulations in privacy, speech and protections for children. It is also behind on A.I. regulations. Lawmakers in the European Union are set to introduce rules for the technology later this year. And China has created A.I. laws that comply with its censorship laws.