A house committee met this week to discuss possible AI legislation and discussed an outstanding measure to prevent states from issuing their own regulations. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
In one of the first major steps in the discussion of the widespread regulations for artificial secret services, the members of the subcommittee of the House of House met for trade, manufacturing and trading on Wednesday to discuss the square of the United States in the global AI race.
The hearing took place in the middle of an advance by the Republicans of the House of Representatives For the next decade, switch on a stopover of the AI legislation at the state level. The measure was last week as part of the household supply of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, some of the Republicans of the house “Big, beautiful bill” The aim of reducing hundreds of billions of state expenditure, including security network programs, over the next ten years.
“Today we are here to determine how the congress can support the growth of an industry that is of crucial importance for American competitiveness and jobs without writing the race for the Global Ai Rul book,” said Florida Rep.
In a two and a half hour hearing, the members of the subcommittee, such as America’s leadership in the AI, the groundbreaking AI Act of the European Union, discussed last year, the growing patchwork of state laws and the proposed moratorium to these laws.
Support for federal guidelines or regulation in relation to AI technologies that have received non -partisan support in the last congress and the cross -party Task Force for Artificial Intelligence published his research and results in December. But many Republicans who have supported these efforts in the past change the course and argue that a moratorium for state laws could give the congress the time to adopt a uniform, federal guidelines.
MP Jay Oberolte, a Republican from California, said that more than 1,000 state laws that were introduced this year have caused urgency to bring together the federal guidelines. The states currently have a “creative agency” because of AI regulations, he said.
“The states have preceded this. They feel a creative possession of their framework conditions and they are now preventing us from doing so,” said Oberolte. “This is an object lesson for us why we need a moratorium to prevent this from occurring.”
Critics of the moratorium questioned why legislation at the state level would prevent the creation of federal guidelines.
MP Kim Schrier, a Democrat from Washington, said that the states’ ability to roam the ability to roam AI without federal framework was first “the great gift of the Republicans of Big Tech”. The moratorium for state AI laws suggests stopping an commissioned legislation and lifting existing laws.
“This pattern of gifts and giveaways on Big Tech The Trump government with the cooperation of the Republicans in the congress violates American consumers,” she said. “Instead, we should learn from work that our state and local colleagues are now doing to deliver well, to deliver robust laws and to give American companies the framework and the resources they need to protect consumers.”
House members who oppose the KI legislation cited a lack of regulations for one of the reasons why the United States currently lead the global AI market. The USA rank firsttold Marc Bhargava, director of the Global Venture Capital company General Catalyst, although China follows the computing power and his AI models closely afterwards.
Sean Heather, Senior Vice President for international regulatory matters and antitrust law in the Chamber of Commerce, said this legislation AI act of the European UnionWhat came into force last summer could overthrow the USA from its top position. The EU’s AI Act is comprehensive and transmits regulatory responsibility to the developers of the AI to alleviate the risk of damage from the systems. In addition, developers must provide technical documentation and training summary.
The EU’s AI Act is one of the factors why Europe is not a stronger player in the AI, said Bhargava, but it’s not the only one. The United States has a story in the investment in science and innovation, are found to be found for tech startups and for founders with a migration background, he said. 46% of the Top -Fortune 500 companies In 2024, immigrants and 65% of the top AI companies were founded. Europe has not followed these business -friendly guidelines, said Bhargava.
“The reason why we are in front of us today are our startups. We have to think about how we can continue to give you this edge and give you that edges give you guidelines and not necessarily a framework or a patchwork of state regulations or the regulation,” said Bhargava. “We have to find this real balance.”
AI companies in the United States, which are currently shaped themselves, they test their models for some of the social and cyber security risks that many legislators would like to see in the law. Most investors also pursue their own strategy of Due diligence, said Bhargava. At General Catalyst you rate data records and training models as well as the output of the models. You also ask AI companies to determine the potential downstream effects that could come from their models.
Bhargava and a handful of members of the committee said that they fear that too mighty regulations, especially those who put a regulatory burden on developers, as in the EU, could squeeze the next great tech start -ups before they can make their foot.
A lack of laws, however, brings the Americans to a hazardous place, said Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat from Florida. She cited concerns about the interactions of minors with the non -regulated AI, like the case of one 14-year-old From her state that had committed suicide after building a close relationship with a chat bot, and another 14-year-old who was have sexual conversations With a meta chat bot.
“What the hell does the congress do?” Said Castor. “What do you do to take the bulls out of time while countries acted to protect us?”
Amba KAK, Co-Executive Director of the AI NOW Institute, which examines the social implications of AI, said that it was skeptical that the industry is upset or to grow to grow the AI. During the hearing, she said that the members claimed that existing agencies or general rules would protect the Americans from the damage to the AI.
“But if that were true, we would not see the ruthless spread of AI applications that use children in this way,” she said.
Although the congress is in the early phases of taking into account a federal framework, Bhargava said that the states passed their existing AI laws taking into account the “best intentions”.
“People want to protect consumers. They want to create frameworks,” he said. “And in some cases it is because the federal government has not got to have a framework that we leave to the states to regulate.”
Bhargava encouraged the members of the “Stark” committee to work together on a cross -party framework and to include the results of the cross -party task force of the past year.
“I really think that if we can transform this into politics and transform it at federal level, instead of leaving it to the states,” said Bhargava. “It would be in the best interest of the startups we represent.”
