STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Republicans are not done debating the budget bill they're trying to pass through Congress. Some senators say this bill adds too much to the federal deficit. It increases rather than reduces federal borrowing. Others worry about cuts to Medicaid, among other things. Some lawmakers have raised concerns about other provisions, including one touching the regulation of artificial intelligence. NPR White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram is covering that. Good morning.
DEEPA SHIVARAM, BYLINE: Hey. Good morning.
INSKEEP: OK. So, in theory, this is a budget bill. It's about spending rates. But there's this provision about AI. What does it say?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. It's kind of tucked away in this really big bill. And it says that most laws that states have passed in regards to AI protections, the federal government would step in and pause enforcement on those laws for 10 years.
INSKEEP: Whoa, whoa. Wait a minute. Ten years with no enforcement of AI regulations. When I first heard this, I just wondered, is there any chance that, you know, a chatbot got in there and just kind of made that change to the legislation?
SHIVARAM: I don't think so because I think it did pass the House, Steve. It got...
INSKEEP: OK.
SHIVARAM: ...Approved...
INSKEEP: OK.
SHIVARAM: ...So it's real.
INSKEEP: Got it. Well, what are some of the laws that would be paused for an entire decade?
SHIVARAM: Yeah. So there's an example that's pretty prominent in Tennessee. They passed what's called the ELVIS Act, which protects people like musicians against AI recreations of their voice. Another interesting one is in Utah - there's a law that protects consumers when it comes to chatting with AI mental health chatbots, and half the states in the U.S. have laws that protect against deepfakes in election materials. And there's, you know, a ton of other examples, but the thing to keep in mind is that states have really had to step in and take it upon themselves to pass their own AI laws because Congress hasn't passed any federal regulation when it comes to AI despite working on it for years. So that's why states have stepped in on their own and created this patchwork, right? And that's one of the main reasons many Republicans want to intervene here. They say that state laws aren't uniform and that inconsistency hurts businesses and tech companies.
INSKEEP: OK. So that's their explanation. Can't do it patchwork, state-by-state. They are, in this case, unlike some others, not in favor of a state-by-state sort of laboratory of ideas. What does the White House think of this provision?
SHIVARAM: So I reached out to the Office of Science and Technology at the White House. They declined to comment, but remember that this is a White House that has a lot of players who are close to or have long worked in the tech sector. President Trump has been really clear that he wants there to be very few roadblocks for AI companies, and that's in line with what some Republicans are arguing here. They don't want anything to hamper AI innovation because they say the U.S. is trying to compete with China. But J.B. Branch, who works at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, I talked to him, and he says consumers need some protections.
J B BRANCH: This is just appeasement to Big Tech with a giant bow on it. Whatever Congress comes out with isn't going to be perfect. Not everyone's going to love it. That's how it works. But to say that we're going to rip away any protections while we kind of try to get our act together is recklessly irresponsible.
SHIVARAM: And Branch says that AI innovation in the U.S. is already happening, right? And cutting out state protections would mean that there'd be no rules curbing these tech companies.
INSKEEP: OK. You said this already passed the House. How likely is it to also pass the Senate?
SHIVARAM: It gets a little bit wonky here, so stick with me. For Republicans to be able to pass this big bill on their own, there's a special Senate rule that says that all provisions have to be directly tied to the budget. And this provision on AI isn't budget related. It's policy related. And, you know, there's some really vocal Republicans who are opposed. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn. Just yesterday, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said she didn't know that the provision was in the bill when she voted for it, but she won't support the final version. But keep in mind, Steve, you know, even if this gets scrapped from this bill, that doesn't mean that the idea of stripping away states' AI laws is completely dead because Texas Senator Ted Cruz has said that he would put it forward in a new package.
INSKEEP: Deepa Shivaram. Thanks so much.
SHIVARAM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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