Buried in the budget reconciliation package recently passed by the House is a moratorium that would block every U.S. state from passing laws on artificial intelligence or automation for the next decade.
Why would lawmakers try to sneak a 10-year ban on AI regulation into a budget bill?
No surprise, it’s money.
There’s big money in Big Tech. The draft moratorium is the result of aggressive lobbying from companies that are already using AI to undermine workers and eliminate jobs.
To understand what a ban on AI regulation could mean, ask yourself: what are lawmakers talking about when they talk about "AI?"
Most of us imagine programs like ChatGPT churning out text and images. But Big Tech sees something else: disruption, control, profit.
They want driverless trucks crisscrossing our roads without oversight. Delivery drones flying over our neighborhoods without regulation. Fully automated warehouses and ports operated by machine. Freight moving across state lines without a single worker involved — and without anyone paying attention.
They want a world with fewer workers, fewer rules, and zero interference from state or local governments.
(Getty images)
It’s not just blue-collar jobs on the line. AI is already being used to automate white-collar work in finance, law, media, and design. Bad actors are using AI tools to create deepfake videos, clone voices, spread hate, and commit fraud. These tools are being abused now, and without strong public oversight, the risks will get worse.
But some states are stepping up. Lawmakers in both parties have introduced bills to locally regulate AI surveillance, driverless vehicles, and workplace automation. And that’s precisely why Big Tech wants to nuke states’ rights to regulation as quickly as possible.
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If the moratorium language stays in the reconciliation bill and this ban goes through, it will be one of the largest federal takeovers of state power in U.S. history. It would strip all 50 states of their right to protect jobs, police their streets, ensure public safety, and respond to a technology that’s changing by the minute.
It will send our country into a spiral from which we cannot recover. It will lead to a future where states are forced to sacrifice their sovereignty to any special interest with enough money to spend.
Employees work at an intelligent furniture factory using 5G and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies on October 21, 2020 in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province of China. (Liu Zhankun/China News Service via Getty Images)
This isn’t policy. It’s a payoff. It’s a decade-long free pass for tech giants to kill jobs, silence state governments, and reshape the country to their liking behind closed doors. No accountability. Just profits for the people who need it least.
You can’t say you support working people and then vote to replace us with machines. You can’t claim to believe in states’ rights and then give Silicon Valley total control over how America works.
When politicians sell out, it’s always workers who pay the price. But senators still have a choice. They can fix this situation and improve the bill. They can protect hardworking families — or they can side with Big Tech and cast American workers aside.
Senators, do the right thing for the working class and strike the AI moratorium from this bill.