In a decisive 99-1 vote early Tuesday morning, the U.S. Senate struck down a provision that would have banned states from regulating artificial intelligence for 10 years.
The amendment, co-sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., removed the controversial measure from a broader domestic policy bill. The original provision would have prohibited states from passing new AI laws or enforcing existing regulations on AI models and automated systems.
The decision was a blow to tech investors and companies that lobbied aggressively for the effort, including Andreessen Horowitz and OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT. Supporters of the moratorium argued that it’s too hard for startups to comply with various state laws, stifling innovation, The New York Times reported.
Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., “did not support a full moratorium but did lobby for a compromise that preserved the rights of states to regulate certain areas, including protecting consumers from the use of AI in fraud,” a spokesperson said by email.
Seattle-based Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.
Cantwell celebrated the victory.
“The Senate came together tonight to say that we can’t just run over good state consumer protection laws,” Cantwell said on Tuesday. “States can fight robocalls and deepfakes and provide safe autonomous vehicle laws. This also allows us to work together nationally to provide a new federal framework on artificial intelligence that accelerates U.S. leadership in AI while still protecting consumers.”
The proposed ban would have forced states to choose between federal broadband funding and maintaining AI protections. Washington state alone expects to receive $1.2 billion from the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment, or BEAD, program.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced the provision in his chamber; Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., first pushed for the measure in the House.
Last year, 24 states enacted AI-related legislation, Cantwell said in a June media event addressing the amendment.
“Congress is threatening these laws, which will leave hundreds of millions of Americans vulnerable to AI harms by abolishing those state law protections,” she said.
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown joined 39 attorneys general in a letter protesting the proposed ban and called states “laboratories of democracy” for developing AI standards.
“In Washington, we have so many tech industries here that are leading some of the innovative developments in this field. But we also have to recognize many of the potential harms that come from AI across our states and across this country,” Brown said during the earlier event with Cantwell.
Washington has an Artificial Intelligence Task Force that is responsible for researching and crafting regulations around the development and use of AI technologies, and has has already enacted several AI-related protections, including:
- Bans on deepfakes mimicking political rivals
- Prohibitions on the non-consensual distribution of AI-generated sexual images
- Rules against fabricated digital likenesses used for fraud
The state considered additional measures this year, including requirements for AI training data disclosure and helping users identify AI-generated content, though these didn’t pass.
Brown criticized the 10-year timeframe as “silly,” noting AI’s rapid evolution and Congress’s difficulty reaching policy agreements.
“It’s really important that states be given that opportunity” to regulate, he said.
Read the full article here
