TechPolicy.Press

In the coming weeks, the United States Senate is expected to ramp up consideration of a sprawling budget bill passed by the House that, if adopted, could block states from enforcing artificial intelligence regulations for 10 years.

Hundreds of state lawmakers and advocacy groups have opposed the provision, which House Republicans approved last month as an attempt to do away with what they call a cumbersome patchwork of AI rules sprouting up nationwide that could bog down innovation. On Thursday, Senate lawmakers released a version of the bill that would keep the moratorium in place while linking the restrictions to federal broadband subsidies.

Critics have argued that the federal moratorium — despite carving out some state laws — would preempt a wide array of existing regulations, including rules around AI in healthcare, algorithmic discrimination, harmful deepfakes, and online child abuse. Still, legal experts have warned that there is significant uncertainty around which specific laws would be preempted by the bill.

To that end, one non-profit organization that opposes the moratorium on Friday is releasing new research examining which state AI laws would be most at risk if the moratorium is adopted, which the group shared in advance with Tech Policy Press.

The report by Americans for Responsible Innovation — a 501(c)(4) that has received funding from Open Philanthropy and the Omidyar Network, among others — rates the chances of over a dozen state laws being blocked by a moratorium, from “likely” to “possible” to “unlikely.”