Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general oppose a congressional proposal to preempt states from regulating artificial intelligence.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a bill amendment on Sunday to block states from regulating artificial intelligence for the next 10 years.
The proposal is tucked into a much broader federal budget bill.
The attorneys general of 40 states and territories, Mayes included, voiced their opposition to that idea in a letter to Congress on Friday. They wrote that the moratorium would affect hundreds of state laws created to prevent harm associated with artificial intelligence, such as guardrails against privacy violations and explicit materials.
“The impact of such a broad moratorium would be sweeping and wholly destructive of reasonable state efforts to prevent known harms associated with AI,” the attorneys general wrote.
The coalition noted that there hasn’t been anything by way of federal laws to regulate artificial intelligence, and in the absence of federal law, states should be left to create their own solutions.
“We must act now to establish guardrails and prevent harm from AI. Congress must not tie the hands of state leaders working to protect their residents and ensure the ethical development of this rapidly evolving technology,” Mayes said in a statement.
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