The fear of artificial intelligence (AI) becoming self-aware, similar to Sky Net in the eponymous Terminator series, or at least leveraged to manipulate the masses, appears to be driving an onslaught of legislation targeting AI.
Multistate, a government relations firm, has published a map tracking AI legislation that displays 636 AI bills being pursued in the 50 states and 107 in Congress during 2024.
While much legislation is undoubtedly well-intentioned, such a convoluted barrage risks suffocating good AI development before it emerges.
While just about every industry is in hot pursuit of AI, which they can utilize to boost services, cut costs, and deliver the next big thing, some have cautioned about the need for guidelines or regulations to ensure AI does not go off the rails. Elon Musk, President Trump’s right-hand man and DOGE leader, has warned about AI risks, claiming there is a 10% to 20% chance AI goes rogue. In 2023, he called for AI development to be paused. More recently, his company, X, launched AI service Grok, which is available for users of the social media platform.
Via X, Policy analyst Adam Theirer says it is hard to beat China when you are regulating like Europe.
“AI regulatory activity is completely out of control in the U.S. We have already seen over 700 bills introduced less than two months into 2025. That’s around 13 per day,” says Theirer.
He adds that the “technocratic patchwork of regulatory mandates represents a complete inversion of the way America created a winning national framework for the Internet and digital commerce/speech in the 1990s.”
Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance recently traveled to Europe to lambast policymakers for over-regulating AI. Perhaps he was not aware of his own country’s aggressive pursuit of various rules and statutes that may compete with the big government Europeans.
President Trump has appointed David Sacks to be the Crypto and AI Czar for his administration. Sacks will have his work cut out for him as policymakers are going to make policy, and regulators are going to regulate. Many hammers looking for nails… He had better get cracking if he wants to put a policy in place that mitigates most of the concerns while enabling AI innovation, which will probably be rather messy.