Senate Shoots Down 10-Year Ban on State AI Regulations

The Senate has overwhelmingly rejected a proposed 10-year moratorium on state-level artificial intelligence (AI) regulations.

As the Financial Times (FT) reported, the senators voted 99-1 in the early hours of Tuesday (July 1) for an amendment that removed wording about the ban from President Donald Trump’s tax/spending bill.

The vote, as the FT notes, is a defeat for Big Tech companies, who said the ban would help prevent inconsistent, state-by-state rules that could hinder innovation.

“We want to be the leaders in AI and quantum and all these new technologies,” Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said last week. “And the way to do that is not to come in with a heavy hand of government; it’s to come in with a light touch.”

But the proposal had been criticized by other Republicans, who flagged concerns about keeping states from regulating a powerful and potentially disruptive technology.

“I think it’s terrible policy. It’s a huge giveaway to some of the worst corporate actors out there,” said Sen. John Hawley (R-Mo.), an opponent of the ban.

Hawley’s concerns echo those of a group of civil society groups, academic institutions, artists and technology workers who wrote to the U.S. House last to campaign against the ban.

“This moratorium would mean that even if a company deliberately designs an algorithm that causes foreseeable harm — regardless of how intentional or egregious the misconduct or how devastating the consequences — the company making that bad tech would be unaccountable to lawmakers and the public,” the group said in its letter.

In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote earlier this week about growing skepticism about whether agentic AI — which can autonomously complete tasks and take actions outside of human involvement — can generate valid outcomes and be used ethically.

A forthcoming report from PYMNTS Intelligence shows that while almost all chief financial officers (CFOs) at enterprise-level companies are familiar with agentic AI, only 15% are even considering putting it to work.

Companies are evaluating and conducting trials, not embracing wholescale adoption. Agentic AI may be everywhere as a topic, but it’s hardly a fixture of the business world.

“What’s clear in the data is that the companies exploring agentic AI have already gone deep with their use of generative AI, a less-but-still-advanced technology like ChatGPT that is used to create content, including reports, field customer service queries, code software and analyze data,” PYMNTS wrote.

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