The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by our House of Representatives contains a 10-year moratorium on state and local laws concerning artificial intelligence (AI).
There is much to consider in House Bill 1 (its official name is “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”). We know the bill has lots of pork, but if anyone criticizes this bill, they are called deranged or unpatriotic. It is difficult to argue with closed minds.
The moratorium on AI is perhaps one of the most concerning aspects of the Big Beautiful Bill. Why?
First, let me say that AI is one of humankind’s most outstanding achievements. I fully support the positive benefits of AI.
The essence of AI is programmed frameworks called algorithms that perceive and recreate the world. AIs collect, collate, and summarize information in ways that are faster than any human could.
Scribes, authors, analysts, newspaper editors, and others have collected, collated, and summarized information for thousands of years. AI is quickly augmenting or replacing these “manual” activities.
Those with antisocial or criminal intent have been known to create documents that are deliberately false to gain a financial or personal benefit. In the past, what happened if a person or corporate entity published a libelous document? Over the centuries, societal laws have been enacted to allow injured parties to sue and recover compensatory damages. The recent payout by Fox News of $787.5 million is an example. Fox News repeatedly claimed, without proof, that Dominion Voting Systems rigged the 2020 election in favor of Biden. They were required to compensate for their libelous actions.
How is libel relevant to AI? AI acts like a supercharged collector, collator, and summarizer of information. Instead of one or more humans doing the work, a computer algorithm does the job. What happens if an algorithm publishes a story that is inaccurate and harmful to people or organizations? Can we sue an algorithm?
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act specifically prohibits states, counties, and cities from regulating or restricting these algorithms for TEN YEARS. The House of Representatives proposes that any regulation of AI be centralized and controlled by the federal government. As an aside, do you remember when the supporters of House Bill 1 were in favor of states’ rights?
We would be Pollyannish to assume that the federal government always knows best. In the current chaotic environment, where public service is being replaced by private greed, it is unlikely that a ten-year moratorium on AI regulation by any entity other than the federal government will have a positive outcome. An AI controlled by greedy or malicious people could have a ten-year reign of terror over consumers, students, voters, soldiers, and most other groups.
Many of us routinely see attempts by organized criminal gangs and lone wolf hackers to steal our private information. If you haven’t seen these attempts, it’s likely that you don’t have an email account. It is bad now; however, uncontrolled AIs could not only pollute our news sources, but also monitor our online behavior and deliver messages that not only control our thinking, but also steal our money.
The ”Beautiful” bill is not yet law. The Republican controlled Senate can strike the AI provision from the bill. The Senate should strike many other provisions, but the singular focus of this post is to highlight the dangers of a ten-year moratorium on AI regulation. If you do not want to be controlled by an unregulated AI, consider contacting your Senator immediately. This is particularly true if you live in a Red State.