What do you think about the proposed 10-year ban on AI regulation?
Computerworld.com reported that “This week, more than 140 civil rights and consumer protection organizations signed a letter to Congress opposing legislation that would preempt state and local laws governing artificial intelligence (AI) for the next decade. House Republicans last week added a broad 10-year ban on state and local AI regulations to the Budget Reconciliation Bill that’s currently being debated in the House. The bill would prevent state and local oversight without providing federal alternatives.” The May 22, 2025 article entitled “Consumer rights group: Why a 10-year ban on AI regulation will harm Americans” (https://www.computerworld.com/article/3992371/consumer-rights-group-why-10-year-ban-on-ai-regulation-will-harm-americans.html) included these comments:
Proponents of the state AI regulation moratorium have compared it to the Internet Tax Freedom Act — the “internet tax moratorium,” which helped the internet flourish in its early days. Why don’t you believe the same could be true for AI? There are a couple of key differences between the Internet Tax Freedom Act and the proposed moratorium.
First, what was being developed in the 1990s was a unified, connected, global internet. Splintering the internet into silos was (and, to be frank, still is) a real danger to the fundamental feature of the platform that allowed it to thrive. The same is not true for AI systems and models, which are a diverse set of technologies and services which are regularly customized to respond to particular use cases and needs. Having diverse sets of regulatory responsibilities is not the same threat to AI the way that it was to the nascent internet.
Second, removal of potential taxation as a means of spurring commerce is wholly different from removing consumer protections. The former encourages participation by lowering prices, while the latter adds significant cost in the form of dealing with fraud, abuse, and real-world harm.
In short, there is a massive difference between stating that an ill-defined suite of technologies is off limits from any type of intervention at the state and local level and trying to help bolster a nascent and global platform through tax incentives.
What do you think about the proposed 10-year ban on AI regulation?