Hyperdimensional

Introduction

At the AI Action Summit in Paris this week, Vice President J.D. Vance delivered a broadly optimistic message on AI. He chastised the European Union for moving too quickly with preemptive regulations and indicated that the Trump Administration would not be following in the EU’s lead.

I applaud the Vice President for his clear-eyed and optimistic message, but I am not sure he’s right on the facts: as we speak, more than a dozen US states are implementing laws that look strikingly similar to the AI Act. Consistent readers of this newsletter will know that I am referring to a set of laws focused on algorithmic discrimination in “automated decision systems.”

Each of these bills is complex, and frustratingly, they vary considerably between states. That has made it a difficult story for me to cover. So what I’d like to do today is step back and try to provide wider context: How did these laws come to be? What problem do they purport to solve? In what ways are they like the EU’s AI Act? Is that resemblance intentional? What would be the effect of these bills passing?

I think what you will find is that America is on the verge of creating a vast regulatory apparatus for AI, regardless of Vice President Vance’s admirable skepticism of such things. And there isn’t much time to push back: most of the states considering these laws will have ended their legislative sessions within three to four months from today. Given that, let’s dive in.