140+ Tech Worker Groups, Unions & Advocates Oppose AI Law Moratorium in Senate Spending Bill
Washington, D.C. — On Wednesday, Demand Progress and more than 140 organizations—including tech workers, unions and civil society organizations—sent a letter asking Senate leaders to reject a proposal to block enforcement of all state and local AI laws. To skirt Senate rules, proponents tied the AI moratorium to billions of dollars for broadband access, now making the Senate version of the moratorium worse than the House version. In their letter, the groups warn that preempting state and local efforts to make AI safer removes accountability for a still-in-development technology that should not be allowed to make unfettered life-or-death decisions about our safety, our health, our freedoms, our employment and more.
Signers include the Alphabet Workers Union, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, Public Citizen, the American Federation of Musicians, Mozilla, the The Tech Oversight Project and more.
“Tying a 10-year ban on state and local AI laws to broadband access made the Senate bill worse than the House bill. Now states are being put in the impossible position of deciding between broadband for their residents or accepting AI lawlessness,” said Emily Cassin-Peterson, corporate power director at Demand Progress. “The fact that proponents of the AI moratorium are relying on misdirection to sneak this provision into the spending bill shows that they know what they’re doing is unpopular and dangerous. The AI moratorium is simply not ready for prime time. That’s why more than 140 tech workers, unions and advocates are asking the Senate to reject this sweeping proposal.”“The Senate’s draft bill effectively conditions receipt of Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program funding on states’ acceptance of the moratorium,” states the letter. “The threat to that critical funding makes the provision worse rather than better. The provision has nothing to do with broadband and everything to do with eliminating states’ ability to put any guardrails around AI through budgetary blackmail.”