LANSING – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and a bipartisan coalition of 36 attorneys general wrote to Congress (PDF) to oppose efforts to ban state laws that address artificial intelligence (AI). Public reporting over the past few days indicates that lawmakers may insert a state AI law ban into a military funding bill. A bipartisan group of attorneys general, including Attorney General Nessel, successfully opposed a similar ban over the summer. The federal government hasn’t enacted comprehensive protections against AI, so state laws fill the void to protect people against the harmful uses of AI.
“As AI continues to grow and evolve, states must have the ability to act and protect their residents,” Nessel said. “While AI has its benefits, every possible avenue should remain open to shield people from its harms, and restricting states from enacting such protections only weakens their responsibility to safeguard the public.”
The attorneys general acknowledge that AI is a transformative technology that will benefit people in health care, public safety, and other ways, but attorneys general are also on the front lines of confronting the dangers of AI. Recent reporting has shown how AI is distorting reality and enhancing delusions for some vulnerable users, targeting senior citizens with convincing grandparent scams, having inappropriate conversations with children, and in the worst cases, reinforcing and encouraging self-harm and suicidal ideations in children and adults.
Michigan law currently restricts the use of AI in political campaigns to influence elections and protects individuals from AI-generated explicit material by creating a civil cause of action and a crime related to the dissemination of pornographic “deep fakes.” A ban on state AI laws could be catastrophic for people’s safety. Various states have enacted laws to protect their residents from the dangers of AI, including laws that prohibit AI tools that spread misinformation to voters, allow robocallers to spam people with scam phone calls and texts, deceive consumers about products on the market, compromise data privacy, and use algorithms to manipulate and raise costs.
Instead of a harmful prohibition on state AI laws, the attorneys general are asking congressional leaders to work with them on a substantive effort to create federal protections against harmful AI.
Attorney General Nessel is joined in sending this letter to Congress by the attorneys general of American Samoa, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaiʻi, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Northern Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virgin Islands, Washington, and Wisconsin.
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