That’s not sci-fi. That’s a very real clause tucked into former President Donald Trump’s newly revived legislative package dubbed the “Big Beautiful Bill” — and it’s turning heads for all the wrong reasons.
In what many are calling a stealth maneuver, a Republican-backed clause aims to ban any new state-level AI regulations for the next 10 years. That’s right. States would be completely blocked from introducing protections around AI — even the ones already watching deepfakes, data scraping, or kid-focused algorithms spiral out of control.
The kicker? The bill ties this regulation blackout to access to federal AI investment funds. So, unless a state signs away its right to govern AI, it gets no financial love.
Democrats are calling it a digital coup. Civil liberty groups say it opens the floodgates to surveillance capitalism. And AI developers? They’re split between cheering for freedom and cringing at the inevitable PR nightmare.
This is regulatory hostage-taking dressed as innovation. If passed, it effectively kneecaps any local resistance to the next Cambridge Analytica-style scandal before it even happens.
If you’re building in the AI space, you’d better buckle up. The guardrails might just be getting ripped off the track.
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