Big Tech companies lobby for 10-year moratorium on US states regulating AI

Big Tech companies, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta, are actively lobbying for a controversial 10-year ban on US states regulating artificial intelligence (AI) models. The move, aimed at preventing a patchwork of inconsistent regional rules, has created divisions within both the AI industry and President Donald Trump's Republican party.

Lobbyists are pressuring the Senate to enact the decade-long moratorium, a provision already passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill, which has already passed its final vote in the US House of Representatives. Proponents of the light-touch approach include Chip Pickering of INCOMPAS. He argues this is crucial for maintaining American leadership and competitiveness against China, stating it's "the right policy at the right time."

However, critics condemn this view. Asad Ramzanali of Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator described it as Big Tech trying to avoid "laws that ban irresponsible practices," while MIT professor Max Tegmark labelled it a "power grab" to concentrate wealth and power. Meanwhile, AI safety campaigners, including Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei, caution that relying on self-regulation could have disastrous societal consequences as Silicon Valley races to release more powerful models. 

The proposed moratorium has also fractured Republican politicians, who are concerned about stripping states of oversight over a technology with significant potential for social and economic upheaval. 

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