Congress published its long-awaited bipartisan report on artificial intelligence Tuesday, giving America a detailed look at how a divided Congress is grappling with the technology. There’s no chance the report will lead to meaningful regulation before this Congress ends, and AI is unlikely to be first among legislative priorities when President-elect Donald Trump takes office next year. What the document offers, however, is valuable insight into legislators’ priorities — and how they fit with the tech industry, as a cadre of technologists and investors power the Trump transition. On one point, industry and the House are closely aligned: The report recommends the government “reduce administrative burdens and bureaucracy,” exactly the goal of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s “Department of Government Efficiency” that will offer suggestions for cutting the federal budget. Despite that symmetry, the report’s ambiguity about how to achieve that aim has some tech-minded reformers worried Congress won’t do it. More broadly, tech watchers say the report’s incremental recommendations are too loose to create a stable regulatory regime for AI, leaving instead a confusing patchwork of state regulations. Adam Thierer, an author and analyst at the free-market R Street Institute, focused on the report’s study of preemption, which would allow Congress to supersede state laws. The House floated a moratorium on state AI laws, but ultimately recommended a “study” of all state and federal AI laws on the books. Thierer wrote on Medium that the report “leaves the door wide open for 2025 to become the year that the mother of all regulatory patchworks gets imposed on algorithmic innovators in America.” Despite praising what he sees as the report’s “positive, pro-innovation vision,” he added that “the document simultaneously represents an abdication of responsibility by Congress … The states are moving fast with their efforts to bring the European Union’s technocratic regulatory regime to America.” Another area of disappointment for techno-optimists was energy, a policy hobbyhorse for those who believe that the incoming Trump administration could lead to an energy renaissance that could drive AI. The report recommends Congress encourage the use of AI to power energy efficiency and grid modernization, but has precious little of the “build, baby, build” rhetoric about expanding U.S. power capacity that most tech cheerleaders are calling for. “Maybe I am looking into this too much, but it seems that this report has coupled data center energy demands with grid modernization and not general permitting reform,” Will Rinehart, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told DFD. “The report recognizes that energy generation will be key, but then doesn't make any kind of recommendation to actually speed that up.” That’s not to say that the report was universally panned. Techno-libertarians found a lot to love despite the report’s lack of specifics, and so did liberal civil society and industry groups: A statement from the American Civil Liberties Union called it “appropriately cautious” on data privacy and civil rights issues, and Paul Lekas of the Software & Information Industry Association endorsed its more narrowly targeted “approach to regulation and the emphasis on government leadership in responsible use.” Neil Chilson, head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute and former chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission during Trump’s first term, participated in the bipartisan task force’s roundtable on civil rights and civil liberties. He argued on X that the report takes a “substantive and thoughtful” approach to AI bias and civil rights that won’t impede the use and implementation of AI, and wrote that he was “especially pleased with the emphasis of a use/sector-based approach and the heavy emphasis on government use.” Rinehart warned Congress isn’t offering much when it comes to the industry-favorite idea of clearing away regulatory hurdles with AI. He pointed to the first Trump administration’s “Regulatory Clean Up Initiative” at the Health and Human Services Department, which used AI to find outdated laws and streamline departmental code, a project the Biden administration continued to remove a good chunk of code. By that standard, he told DFD, the report has little new to offer in boosting DOGE’s mission. “It seems likely that both DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget will expand this approach to other agencies,” Rinehart said, while “In contrast … the recent House report acknowledges this concept in passing [but] falls short of fully endorsing this kind of transformative reform.” House AI Task Force Chair Jay Obernolte told POLITICO that members of his panel met with the transition team and that House Speaker Mike Johnson would be meeting with David Sacks, the venture capitalist tapped by Trump as “AI and crypto czar.” Sacks will likely play a huge role in shaping any future AI legislation, and is a vocal advocate for a hands-off approach to the industry. Confronted with an uncertain regulatory future in the states, however, he might find himself agreeing with tech wonk-world that an ounce of regulatory prevention is worth a pound of cure.
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