By LINDSEY GILBERT CQ-Roll Call/TNS
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WASHINGTON — As a wave of “Oppenheimer” vs. “Barbie” memes washed over the internet this week, members of Congress tried to ride it, joining in the fun. But a few struck a more serious tone. With nuclear policy back in popular conversation for the first time in years, lawmakers with a long-standing interest in the topic wondered how to seize the moment.

Sen. Edward J. Markey saw an opportunity to promote his proposal to ban AI from launching nuclear weapons, touting a meeting with one of the creative forces behind “Oppenheimer.”

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The Massachusetts Democrat met with Kai Bird, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning book helped inspire Christopher Nolan to make his moody summer opus.

“I’m honored that Kai Bird has endorsed my legislation to ensure the robots never have their finger on the nuclear trigger,” Markey said in a statement, adding that he hopes senators will take it seriously as they work to finish their version of the annual defense policy bill.

Nolan’s movie offers a three-hour tour of the ethical and political history of America’s nuclear weapons program, following the tortured journey of J. Robert Oppenheimer, often called the father of the atomic bomb. It is based on the 2005 biography that Bird co-wrote with Martin J. Sherwin, “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.”

Markey said he sees an AI arms race beginning that recalls the nuclear arms race of the last century, and he wants public officials to remember that Oppenheimer “created a monster he ultimately could not contain.”

The summer movie release, which sparked a frenzy on Friday as it competed with the equally anticipated “Barbie” from director Greta Gerwig, was met with disappointment from advocates who had hoped it would acknowledge the lingering effects of the Manhattan Project and its testing program for people in New Mexico.

Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., echoed those concerns, pointing to the “Downwinders and post-71 uranium mine workers” in his home state whose stories didn’t make it into Nolan’s biopic.

“With so much interest in Oppenheimer and the Trinity Test, this is an opportunity to educate millions of Americans that nearly eight decades later, New Mexicans are still dealing with the impacts of radiation exposure,” Luján said in an emailed statement.

The Democrat renewed calls to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, the 1990 law that compensates some people who contracted cancer after nuclear contact. But he suggested the hoopla surrounding the movie hadn’t done much to advance the cause.

“It’s the sad truth that too many have died from the radioactive fallout from these decades-old tests. And I’ll be very candid, I’m worried folks aren’t really focused on the negative consequences of the Oppenheimer nuclear tests,” he tweeted.