STAT+: As Congress waffles on AI, state legislatures step up to fill the void

State lawmakers are fed up with federal inaction on artificial intelligence and are taking matters into their own hands. 

Lawmakers in Colorado, California, and Connecticut this year managed to pass AI-related bills, some quite sweeping in nature, even if the more ambitious ones were eventually killed by governors. And it’s not just blue states trying to fit guardrails onto the fast-moving AI industry.

“I don’t have much faith that the federal government is going to come up with something as comprehensive or as complicated as an artificial intelligence framework. We didn’t see that they were able to do that with privacy,” said Republican Texas state representative Giovanni Capriglione in an interview with Dallas TV station WFAA earlier this year. “But here’s the reality: if Texas were to go and create an AI framework, it would be one that other people would have to follow everywhere else as well, right, just as if California were to go and do that.” Capriglione is currently circulating a draft AI consumer protections bill that might serve as a blueprint for red states.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…