Republicans Try To Cram Decade-Long AI Regulation Ban Into Budget Reconciliation Bill (404media.co) 55
An anonymous reader quotes a report from 404 Media: Late last night, House Republicans introduced new language to the Budget Reconciliation bill that will immiserate the lives of millions of Americans by cutting their access to Medicaid, and making life much more difficult for millions more by making them pay higher fees when they seek medical care. While a lot of attention will be justifiably given to these cuts, the bill has also crammed in new language that attempts to entirely stop states from enacting any regulation against artificial intelligence.
"...no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the 10 year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act," says the text of the bill introduced Sunday night by Congressman Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The text of the bill will be considered by the House at the budget reconciliation markup on May 13.
That language of the bill, how it goes on to define AI and other "automated systems," and what it considers "regulation," is broad enough to cover relatively new generative AI tools and technology that has existed for much longer. In theory, that language will make it impossible to enforce many existing and proposed state laws that aim to protect people from and inform them about AI systems. [...] In theory none of these states will be able to enforce these laws if Republicans manage to pass the Budget Reconciliation bill with this current language.
"...no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the 10 year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act," says the text of the bill introduced Sunday night by Congressman Brett Guthrie of Kentucky, Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The text of the bill will be considered by the House at the budget reconciliation markup on May 13.
That language of the bill, how it goes on to define AI and other "automated systems," and what it considers "regulation," is broad enough to cover relatively new generative AI tools and technology that has existed for much longer. In theory, that language will make it impossible to enforce many existing and proposed state laws that aim to protect people from and inform them about AI systems. [...] In theory none of these states will be able to enforce these laws if Republicans manage to pass the Budget Reconciliation bill with this current language.
The party of small government (Score:5, Insightful)
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States rights be damned.
Yes, you are right about the hypocrisy. That checks out.
But the sheer idea that a state could regulate development of artificial intelligence is so laughable. That's not like control over education in your state or car emissions in your state.
I can't even think of a good analogy. Something both global and digital that's in no way tied to a particular physical location... Maybe similar to regulating pornography production in a state (and I don't mean performer work conditions which do have a physical tie
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You think California couldn't regulate AI, as it's largely being done in California, by companies headquartered in California?
The datacenters sucking down electricity like water in order to run the AI isn't tied to a particular physical location? That's probably news to the utility companies that upgraded all the power transmission to that physical location.
Is it problematic for a state to try to step into the regulatory vacuum, and potentially create a patchwork of regulation? Sure. But it's even more i
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in china the state is the whole of china, and they do have regulations at that level and some regional leeway too, even at the municipal level, for example the "beijing ai innovation development pilot zone".
then again their regulations usually don't have serving corporate greed as a primary goal.
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no, they just have over 3000 years of history and probably would like to enjoy 3000 more, with ups and downs and all.
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States rights be damned.
Yes, you are right about the hypocrisy. That checks out.
But the sheer idea that a state could regulate development of artificial intelligence is so laughable. That's not like control over education in your state or car emissions in your state.
The bill attempts to regulate AI, not just the development of AI. I'm not sure what's so laughable about regulating the use of computer systems in general and AI specifically. I'm guessing few people have any problems with regulating the use of cars. If those cars use AI, it doesn't seem unreasonable to regulate the use of AI in cars. AI is only useful when embedded in a larger system that does something. We already have lots of laws and regulations for those larger systems, so regulating AI seems like
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I don't think it will ever see a court, because they're trying to move this as part of a fiscal reconciliation package that has procedural rules applied to it to prevent this kind of bullshit from being attached without debate.
The parliamentarian will undoubtedly scratch this, as it has no fiscal impact at all, which is one of the rules to prevent people from hanging policy amendments on a fiscal package. Or, the whole package no longer goes through reconciliation and is subject to filibuster / cloture vot
Re: The party of small government (Score:2)
It's easy to regulate AI art the state level.
"Any job offer for a job based in California must adhere to the following AI disclosure".
"Any mortgage offered in a Californian property must satisfy the following AI disclosure"
etc.
AI regulation need not be about regulating AI innovation; it's enough merely to make sure it's applied fairly. And almost all real-world applications are indeed local.
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Wickard v. Filburn allowed the federal government to claim that growing wheat for your own personal consumption constituted "interstate commerce." AI development and use seems like far less of a stretch.
I'm really hoping we come out of the current unpleasantness with a broad consensus that an overly powerful federal government is bad for the American people... but I hoped we'd come out of Covid with the sense that "globally distributed supply chains are a terrible idea" so I don't hold out much hope.
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States rights be damned.
And how would this regulation help constituents -- the not-billionaire ones who don't own AI companies?
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Oddly, US Constitution makes this illegal in two different places. Are you anti-woke enough to find them, or do you not read?
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or do you not read?
The punctuation, grammar, and sentence structure weren't enough to give you the answer to that one?
The way this is worded: (Score:2)
The way this is worded, essentially anything with an if-then statement, so basically, software, can't be regulated for ten years? Wow. The broligarchy are really getting what they paid for here. If you declare "automated decision systems" off limits from regulation, you're really just opening up the universe and saying, "Let 'er buck."
Yeah, healthcare getting ever more expensive sucks too, but I've been priced out of healthcare for most of the time since the ACA came into effect. As much as I'd like to see
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Don't worry, the EU will (again) enforce some sanity. Well, as long as the US underclass (i.e. everybody except the rich) gets the same products as everybody in the EU, that is.
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Wow. The broligarchy are really getting what they paid for here.
Can't wait to see what the foreign ones get. For example, a $400M (before the palace upgrades) Boeing 747 is a lot of cheddar on the plate - I mean tarmac.
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https://www.inc.com/bruce-crumley/how-doge-plans-to-use-ai-to-cut-70000-jobs/91185538
This will allow them to without worry as its AI, the new untouchable.
And that is just the tip of the Doge AI iceberg.
https://fortune.com/2025/04/09/musks-doge-reportedly-deploys-ai-to-monitor-federal-workers-for-anti-trump-sentiment-the-willingness-to-skirt-laws-is-brazen/
AI thought police. It's AI, so above the law.
And when you are discovered, AI c
They're not sending their best (Score:1)
Any headline that starts "Republicans are trying to cram..." will end in either an eyeroll or forehead slap.
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Especially since this is the exact kind of thing that isn't allowed in a reconciliation bill. Reconciliation is a process meant to avoid the filibuster on fiscal bills, and anything not fiscal related gets red-lined by the parliamentarian.
There is no fiscal element to banning AI regulation for 10 years. That is a policy, and not a fiscal policy.
Funny (Score:1, Troll)
Republicans seem to be on a banning spree. Banning calling them out for their lies (otherwise known as misinformation), banning of books, banning women from having control of their bodies, banning teaching of history, and the list goes on.
Now they want to ban controls on AI. It's almost as if they're against freedom.
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I heard that theirs is the party of "small government" yet they keep trying to big-government stomp anything that offends their delicate sensibilities.
All software and circuitry (Score:4, Funny)
Pretty sure I can make an "automated decision system" out of a couple NAND gates. And now, to get around municipal building codes, I can use inflammable materials when constructing that daycare center. The NAND chips make it legal.
(Why did I use inflammable materials? To avoid the flammable ones!)
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Indeed. Who are the retards that write this stuff?
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Congress.
Specifically, the Republican majority in Congress.
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Pretty sure I can make an "automated decision system" out of a couple NAND gates. And now, to get around municipal building codes, I can use inflammable materials when constructing that daycare center. The NAND chips make it legal.
(Why did I use inflammable materials? To avoid the flammable ones!)
Inflammable means something that can easily catch fire and burn quickly. It is synonymous with flammable, despite the prefix "in-" which can be misleading.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Inflammable means something that can easily catch fire and burn quickly. It is synonymous with flammable,
The English language is just insane.
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Classical Latin verb inflammo,inflammare from in+flammo, literally "to be in flames". With a privative in-, the pair is inflammable/ininflammable ("in" is used twice with different meanings). It's like that in all languages that derive from Latin. English tried to resolve the ambiguity by avoiding "in", giving the new pair flammable/nonflammable. Which quite a good idea. But then one should never use flammable and inflammable in the same sentence, because it indeed looks insane.
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But I would consider the merits: Is it a good idea to allow states to regulate AI (whether it comes from R party or D party)?
Personally, I doubt that because I cannot think of a good reason to let a state regulate AI. What could it possibly achieve? But I'd be interested in counter arguments for why it is useful.
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Presently most of the calls to regulate AI seem to be coming from the copyright cabal, and personally, I say "cry me a river".
Now, I realize they've been perpetuating this idea that AI hurts the the little guy too, but the reality is that the creative industry's existing gatekeeping practices are what has prevented most of those folks from making a decent living in the arts. They want you to think it's some guy playing guitar in his garage who is having his dreams crushed by an algorithm, when it's really
I used to reply with a different comment (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to say how nuts it was that the US Constitution allows bills of appropriation to consider anything other than appropriation. Most sane countries limit these bills so you cannot attach unrelated riders to it.
But that was the past. These days I don't think it's nuts the Constitution doesn't address this because who even cares about that document these days. So now I just recommend everyone sit down, shut up and hope you don't do anything to get you deported without due process.
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For the most part, the reconciliation process does that as well, in order to skip cloture (read: filibuster). There is a very good chance the Parliamentarian shitcans this out of the bill for not having any fiscal impact.
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There is a very good chance the Parliamentarian shitcans this out of the bill for not having any fiscal impact.
That was my first thought as well.
But, my next thought was to remember the Parliamentarian is appointed by the Speaker of the House, who is totally beholden to The Orange One. So if Jason Smith were to rule that way, my guess is Trump would immediately brand him a member of the "Deep State" and order Johnson to toss Smith out on his ear.
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These days I don't think it's nuts the Constitution doesn't address this because who even cares about that document these days.
We do still have a Constitution, it's just that the interpretation has gotten a bit wonkier in recent years. Things like "Deplatform the entire US population? Totally cool with the 1A, because the founding fathers didn't have social media!"
The neat part is no logical consistency is required anymore, either: "But what about those assault weapons, the founding fathers didn't have those!"
"But if the founding fathers did, I'm sure they'd have absolutely loved them. Hey invading British soldiers, say hello t
I'm guessing nobody read the bill (Score:2, Informative)
This article is a mess. First it throws in an irrelevant comment about Medicaid, then breathlessly editorializes.
I suggest you read the bill for yourself and skip this bullshit article
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You're getting pretty close to the best protest sign I've seen yet: Oligargle DEEZ NUTS
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Suspect the problem is you didn't know that Medicaid was about 1/3 of our healthcare system. Fun fact unless you live in a major city your hospitals are probably only open because they get a ton of funding from Medicaid. The rural hospitals will immediately close if the Republicans get what they want and a lot of the suburban
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Actually, the entire text of the budget reconciliation bill is this disgustingly long thing [dj.com]. Elizabeth Warren actually posted a rather tragically hilarious video [youtube.com] during the previous Trump administration, where she points out that the GOP doesn't even realistically expect our elected representatives to read the text of a budget bill, either.
You've frequently derided ChatGPT as a tool for 12-year-olds, but it can easily parse through that over bloated mess of a bill (ironically named "The One, Big, Beautiful
The EV credit is on the chopping block, too (Score:2)
I'm kinda surprised the AI aspect is bigger news than the EV credit possibly going away. [reddit.com] Unlike this AI rider, this does directly relate to the budget, which gives it a high likelihood of passing.
Yawn (Score:2)
Both Republicans and Democrats do the same shit every year.
Both sides will try to cram some pet-project or no-chance-in-hell-it-passes-as-a-standalone-bill into something like the Defense Spending Bill
or some other " must pass " legislation.
Lots of finger pointing ensues from whichever party isn't in charge at the time.
Wash - Rinse - Repeat every single year.
It's neither new nor news.
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Both sides will try to cram some pet-project or no-chance-in-hell-it-passes-as-a-standalone-bill into something like the Defense Spending Bill
or some other " must pass " legislation.
And it works. That's how we got the TikTok ban, which the current administration made go away with a wave of dear leader's magic Sharpie. Don't get me wrong, the TikTok ban is stupid, but so is how our current Republican leadership decided undo it.