All but a handful of states have some laws regulating artificial intelligence.
The defeat early Tuesday of a ban on state laws for artificial intelligence dealt a major blow to the tech industry on the verge of a policy victory.
In a 99-1 vote, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to strike an amendment to the Republican economic policy package that would have imposed a decadelong moratorium on attempts to regulate A.I. by the states.
The before-sunrise vote was a win for consumer groups and Democrats, who had argued for weeks against the provision that they feared would remove any threat of oversight for the powerful A.I. industry.
“The Senate came together tonight to say that we can’t just run over good state consumer protection laws,” Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, said in a statement. “States can fight robocalls, deepfakes and provide safe autonomous vehicle laws.”
There are no federal laws regulating A.I. but states have enacted dozens of laws that strengthen consumer privacy, ban A.I.-generated child sexual abuse material and outlaw deepfake videos of political candidates. All but a handful of states have some laws regulating artificial intelligence in place. It is an area of deep interest: All 50 have introduced bills in the past year tied to the issue.
The Senate’s provision, introduced in the Senate by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, sparked intense criticism by state attorneys general, child safety groups and consumer advocates who warned the amendment would give A.I. companies a clear runway to develop unproven and potentially dangerous technologies.