Republicans are trying to enact a controversial provision in the Senate reconciliation bill imposing a sweeping 10-year moratorium on States’ enforcement of laws “limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating” artificial intelligence (AI). Below are 10 more reactions to this proposal from organizations across the country.  

1. “The AI is already deeply entrenched in American industry and society; people will be at risk until basic rules ensuring safety and fairness can go into effect. Over the next decade, this novel technology will be used throughout our society, for harm and good. It will significantly alter our industries, jobs, and ways of life, and rebuild how we as a people function in profound and fundamental ways. That Congress is burying a provision that will strip the right of any state to regulate this technology in any way – without a thoughtful public debate – is the antithesis of what our Founders envisioned.” –  17 Republican Governors  

2. “The impact of such a broad moratorium would be sweeping and wholly destructive of reasonable state efforts to prevent known harms associated with AI. This bill will affect hundreds of existing and pending state laws passed and considered by both Republican and Democratic state legislatures. Some existing laws have been on the books for many years.” - 40 State Attorneys General  

3. “The sweeping federal preemption provision in Congress’s reconciliation bill would also overreach to halt a broad array of laws elected officials have already passed to address pressing digital issues. Over the past several years, states across the country have enacted AI-related laws increasing consumer transparency, setting rules for the government acquisition of new technology, protecting patients in our healthcare system, and defending artists and creators.” - 260 State Lawmakers  

4. “But this sweeping approach threatens to override legitimate state efforts to curb Big Tech’s worst abuses—with no federal safeguards to replace them. It also risks undermining the constitutional role of state legislatures to protect the interests and rights of American children and working families amid AI’s far-reaching social and economic disruptions.” - Heritage Foundation  

5. “If Congress preempts state laws now and uses broadband funding as a bargaining chip, when it has not adopted comprehensive safeguards in partnership with civil rights and civil society groups, it would set a dangerous precedent for the future of AI in the United States. To adopt this moratorium would mean that the public will be left without redress when an AI decision-making system denies life-saving health care, when bad actors use generative AI to knowingly produce non-consensual intimate imagery, and when scammers utilize the technology to defraud vulnerable communities like seniors.” - Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights  

6. “Economic Liberties’ Rethink Trade program recently identified nearly 50 AI and kids online safety policies, either passed or proposed by state legislatures that the tech industry is also attempting to preempt through international trade agreements. While the bill’s proponents argue the moratorium would prevent a “patchwork” of state rules and enable federal AI adoption, the reality is that it would block enforcement of dozens of bipartisan laws designed to hold Big Tech accountable and protect the public from their outsized power.” - American Economic Liberties Project  

7. “This isn't just about speculative future rules as the language is so broad and clumsily drafted that it would block the enforcement of any state law that touches any type of full or partial AI system— including civil actions filed by Americans injured, killed, defrauded, or discriminated against by any type of AI system. This includes cases for fraud, wrongful death, insurance denials or discrimination, medical misdiagnosis or treatment, consumer scams, deepfakes and IP violations, civil rights violations, and even cases involving the severe physical injury or death of children.” - American Association for Justice  

8. “As we have learned during other periods of rapid technological advancement, like the industrial revolution and the creation of the automobile, protecting people from being harmed by new technologies, including by holding companies accountable when they cause harm, ultimately spurs innovation and adoption of new technologies. In other words, we will only reap the benefits of AI if people have a reason to trust it.” - Civil Society (140 organizations)  

9. “This budget bill, remarkably, would ban states from setting rules for AI for a full decade, with few exceptions. It would prevent enforcement of laws limiting or regulating AI systems, AI models, and “automated decision systems.” It sounds like something ChatGPT might hallucinate, if the prompt were “write a dystopian science fiction novel, combined with a critique of K Street.” - Brennan Center   

10. “The bill aims to prevent states from regulating emerging technologies that have genuine benefits, but that also are putting their constituents at risk in very real ways, including those with disabilities. Indeed, implementing AI tools in decision-making systems in high-stakes contexts like employment, education and healthcare presents a particularly high risk of harm for people with disabilities.” - Center for Democracy & Technology (Op-Ed)