New efforts this week in Washington to effectively ban individual states from governing artificial intelligence have provoked bipartisan backlash. <\/p>\n
The push from House Republicans and the White House to assert federal control over AI regulation, which echoes a similar attempt over the summer<\/a>, has forged new lines of agreement between far-right commentators and progressive activists.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a coalition of almost everyone against a few extreme tech billionaires who are trying to buy unfettered power,\u201d said New York State Assembly Member Alex Bores, a proponent of states\u2019 ability to govern AI and a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House. \u201cStates protecting our citizens is overwhelmingly popular and bipartisan.\u201d<\/p>\n A new poll released Friday night<\/a>, conducted by YouGov in partnership with the conservative-leaning Institute for Family Studies, found that surveyed adults opposed congressional pre-emption efforts on AI by a 3-to-1 margin.<\/p>\n Bores is a co-author of New York\u2019s RAISE Act, which looks to impose safety-monitoring and evaluation requirements on some of America\u2019s largest AI companies, among other measures. The act has passed the state Legislature and is awaiting New York Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s signature.<\/p>\n The current push for federal AI pre-emption efforts, so called because they would pre-empt or prohibit states\u2019 ability to regulate AI, kicked off early this week. <\/p>\n On Monday, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., told Punchbowl News<\/a> that he and Republican leaders were considering introducing legislation overriding states\u2019 ability to legislate AI into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). <\/p>\n Amendments unrelated to national defense are often attached to the bill<\/a>, as lawmakers view the NDAA as must-pass legislation and use it to include measures that would otherwise face stiffer opposition.<\/p>\n The move provoked immediate pushback, with Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, writing on X Monday night<\/a> that the bill \u201cis a poison pill and we will block it.\u201d <\/p>\n On Tuesday, however, President Donald Trump came out in support of the effort on Truth Social: \u201cInvestment in AI is helping to make the U.S. Economy the \u2018HOTTEST\u2019 in the World \u2014 But overregulation by the States is threatening to undermine this Growth Engine.\u201d <\/p>\n Endorsing a ban on state AI regulation, Trump wrote: \u201cPut it in the NDAA, or pass a separate Bill, and nobody will ever be able to compete with America.\u201d <\/p>\n Prominent proponents of federal pre-emption efforts include White House AI czar David Sacks and several Silicon Valley venture capital backers. Sacks reposted Trump\u2019s comment on X<\/a> Tuesday night.<\/p>\n Marc Andreesen, co-founder of venture capital mainstay Andreesen Horowitz, followed up on Sacks\u2019 post, writing on X<\/a> Tuesday night: \u201cA 50-state patchwork is a startup killer. Federal AI legislation is essential.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet several hours later, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis denounced the efforts to prevent states from passing laws governing AI. Writing on X, DeSantis argued that federal pre-emption \u201ctakes away our sovereignty<\/a>\u201d and that \u201csneaking it into the defense bill is an insult to voters<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The federal pre-emption efforts have also triggered stiff opposition from Republicans\u2019 populist MAGA flank. On his \u201cWar Room\u201d podcast Wednesday<\/a>, influential MAGA whisperer Steve Bannon criticized the moves and advocated for sensible AI regulations. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to slip this into another 9,000 page, must-pass NDAA, that they don\u2019t want to have a discussion about, in the dark of night,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Bannon said individuals seeking \u201ca license to do nails up here on Capitol Hill\u201d currently face more regulation than America\u2019s powerful AI companies. <\/p>\n The fight over who regulates AI switched into a new gear Wednesday night, when a draft executive order designed to pre-empt state AI regulation<\/a> leaked, as first reported by The Information<\/a>. The order remains in draft form and might not be signed by Trump.<\/p>\n The White House has not publicly commented on the draft order. The White House did not reply to a request for comment. <\/p>\n On Thursday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., addressed the issue on X<\/a>: \u201cThere should not be a moratorium on states rights for AI. States must retain the right to regulate and make laws on AI and anything else for the benefit of their state.\u201d <\/p>\n Many opponents of the pre-emption efforts contend that, given slow-moving attempts to regulate AI at the federal level, a pre-emption could introduce a vacuum of AI regulation by failing to replace state legislation with sufficient federal law. Other opponents charge that a federal monopoly on AI legislation would threaten American liberty.<\/p>\n Mark Beall, president of the bipartisan AI Policy Network advocacy group, told NBC News: \u201cWithout guardrails, Americans are concerned that AI will be used to erode our liberties and privacy,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople who disagree on almost everything else agree that innovation shouldn\u2019t mean surrender,\u201d Beall said, arguing that sensible AI regulation would allow Americans to retain their civil liberties while still allowing tech companies to compete with China on cutting-edge AI technology.<\/p>\n On Thursday, Massachusetts’ Democratic senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, urged their colleagues to fight the pre-emption effort given the gravity of risks from AI. <\/p>\n In a joint statement, Warren and Markey wrote that pre-emption efforts \u201ccould block state policymakers from moving forward on basic, bipartisan protections, such as protecting children and teenagers online, combating deepfakes, slowing electricity price hikes, addressing the environmental impacts of data center buildout, preventing algorithmic discrimination, or safeguarding workers from dangerous AI-fueled workplace technology.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe AI moratorium would be a massive giveaway to Big Tech and [a] devastating defeat for Americans,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n