Wisconsin Lawmakers, Industry Experts Share Concerns About ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Preempting AI Regulation
Budget reconciliation bill in Congress would restrict states’ ability to regulate artificial intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence. (CC0 Public Domain)
The Republican budget reconciliation bill working its way through Congress contains language that would restrict states’ ability to regulate artificial intelligence.
The version of the “big, beautiful bill” that passed the House included a provision that would bar states from implementing any AI regulation for the next 10 years.
That prompted a bipartisan group of hundreds of state lawmakers around the country, including three from Wisconsin, to sign a letter to Congress opposing this aspect of the bill.
Senate Republicans have since amended the proposal to cut funding for broadband projects for any state that regulates AI over the next 10 years.
Democratic state Sen. Kelda Roys of Madison was one of the lawmakers who signed the letter. She told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that the updated language hasn’t alleviated her concerns.
“That’s functionally a ban,” Roys said. “The idea is like, if you want your citizens to be connected to the modern world via broadband, then you have to accept totally unregulated AI. That’s not acceptable.”
Republican state Reps. Dan Knodl of Germantown and Shannon Zimmerman of River Falls also signed the letter to Congress, but neither responded to WPR’s request for comment.
Roys said she has had productive conversations with her Republican colleagues and is hopeful that state lawmakers can agree on future AI regulations if that ability isn’t limited by Congress.
“This is an area that is new enough that it hasn’t yet settled into sort of predictable partisan patterns,” Roys said. “My hope is that Republicans at the state level will still be willing to think about what we can and need to be doing to protect our constituents’ interests and particularly our kids.”
AI experts support regulation
Many of Roys’ concerns are shared by experts in artificial intelligence.
University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Annette Zimmermann is a political philosopher of AI and co-lead of the school’s Uncertainty and AI research group.
She told “Wisconsin Today” that the U.S. is seeing a recent shift toward deregulation in AI policy.
“Much like many other experts working in this area, I’ve been deeply concerned about imposing such a heavy handed blanket ban on any sort of state-based efforts to effectively regulate this space,” Zimmermann said. “Right now, unfortunately, we’re in a regulatory landscape where we are heavily relying on individual states to think very hard about how to protect ordinary citizens and consumers from these kinds of harmful outputs.”
She pointed to three primary concerns about artificial intelligence that could affect everyday people: data privacy, misinformation and discrimination.
Zimmermann said other countries have implemented broader protections for consumer data, and the U.S. lacks meaningful federal regulations in this area, especially when compared to the European Union.
When it comes to misinformation, she sees problems with large language models like ChatGPT presenting content in an authoritative voice that is factually incorrect.
And sometimes AI is perpetuating bias and discrimination, Zimmermann said. If the sources AI pulls information from are biased, it perpetuates discrimination against social or racial groups.
“The minute we use a large language model, we’re not using a thinking, living entity,” Zimmermann said. “We’re using something that works a little bit like a parrot.”
One of the arguments in favor of limiting state regulations on artificial intelligence is to prevent a patchwork approach, where different states implement significantly different rules.
That could create challenges for AI developers and users working across state borders.
Zimmermann believes that even a patchy regulatory framework is still better than having no guardrails in place.
Roys agrees.
“The idea that they can’t have adequate compliance with our laws, I think, is laughable,” Roys said. “I, as a small business owner, am still responsible for dealing with all the laws and following the regulations wherever I operate and do business, and that is how it should be.”
The U.S. Senate continues to work through its version of the budget reconciliation bill, pushing to get the bill passed before it recesses on July 4.
An amended version of the bill would also go back to the House for approval before it could be signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Wisconsin state lawmakers, industry experts share concerns about proposed limits to AI regulation was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
If you think stories like this are important, become a member of Urban Milwaukee and help support real, independent journalism. Plus you get some cool added benefits.
