The U.S. House of Representatives just passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act intended to deliver the President’s domestic agenda. Among the provisions is a 10-year moratorium on states from regulating artificial intelliegence. It reads: “…no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce, during the 10-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act, any law or regulation of that State or a political subdivision thereof limiting, restricting, or otherwise regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems entered into interstate commerce” (sec. 43201).
Meanwhile in New Zealand, MP Laura McClure proposed a bill to expand existing laws and criminalize the creation and sharing of non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes. To support her proposal, she held up to her parliamentary colleagues an A3-size AI-generated nude image of herself created in less than five minutes on technology found through a simple Google search.
It emerges that some U.S. lawmakers who voted for the bill had not read the fine print. Their hands are now tied for the next decade.
What to do about AI governance, what dimensions to regulate and how far, seem not to be clear to policy makers. Even while AI is the new frontier for criminal behaviour, it appears some legislators are still working out what the boundaries of digital communication should be.
Kenya is a case in point. This week, the government charged a software developer with “cybercrime” for creating a website to explain a controversial proposed finance bill in easy-to-understand language.
Meanwhile, in Brussels, legislators made important strides with the European Union’s AI Act, arguably the most comprehensively thought-out one so far. It identifies risk, outrightly bans some AI practices, demands transparency, and defines penalties for non-compliance, with some exemptions.
The eclectic nature of the global AI regulatory environment results in loopholes that can be easily exploited. Further, that regulation moves at the speed of bureaucracy while AI evolves at the speed of thought is an added complication.
The stakes couldn’t be higher in this global experiment on who gets to control the future. Will it be governments protecting netizens or corporations chasing power and profit?
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