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Major artificial intelligence labs are done waiting on Washington to pass a national standard for AI, turning to state bills to carve out their own policy lines while Congress tries to catch up.
Most AI labs support a national safety framework for AI that would eliminate the patchwork of state regulations, but they are also realistic about Washington’s slow timeline and states’ hunger to jump on the issue.
While some firms are still set on fighting all state regulations, others like OpenAI and Anthropic are using them to their advantage to stake out their policy positions and inspire similar language at the federal level.
OpenAI, the firm that birthed ChatGPT, has already seen success with multiple of its endorsed-state bills passing legislatures in three major blue states this year.
Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief of global affairs, told The Hill the company wants to create a “de facto” national framework by cherry picking a handful of major AI bills.
“A form of … reverse federalism,” Lehane, a former aide for former President Clinton, said in an interview with The Hill Tuesday. “You’re basically getting the states to replicate each other.”
The Trump administration has spent more than a year pushing Congress to codify federal preemption of state AI laws but mixed feedback on the House’s latest proposal, combined with separate negotiations in the Senate, indicate lawmakers still have a long way to go, with less than six months before a new Congress.
“In a perfect world where we could wave a magic policy / political wand, you would have legislation passed at the federal level that would establish required safety standards,” said Lehane. “As part of that, you have some type of very narrow preemption as it relates to those sort of catastrophic-type safety risks.”
Without a federal standard, Lehane said the company began discussing a state-focused approach about a year ago, since states are “clearly willing to put in some kind of safety standards.”
In the first half of this year, states across the country have introduced more than an estimated 1,500 bills addressing concerns around AI. These concerns have grown over the past year, with polling showing an increase in Americans’ fears over artificial intelligence’s impact on the job market, environment and national security.
OpenAI focused on a handful of specific and somewhat similar proposals in states to determine whether the passage of one bill could influence the progress of others, Lehane explained.
The company secured its latest win in Illinois, where state legislators last month passed S.B. 315 , an AI safety bill some argue is the strongest yet on the issue.
The bill, titled the Creates the Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act, requires large frontier developers to create, publish and annually update an AI framework with assessments on catastrophic risks, cybersecurity and more.
S.B. 315 mirrors legislation passed in California and New York but goes a step further by mandating frontier labs with more than $500 million in revenue to submit third-party audits of their safety plans every year.
OpenAI’s endorsement came as a surprise to some in the tech industry, given past industry opposition to similar audit provisions, which were eventually eliminated in other bills.
Explaining its reasoning, OpenAI said the bill “advances a risk-based approach focused on the most capable models and highest-consequent harms and because it further advances the emerging national framework for frontier AI safety.”
The bill heads to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s (D) desk, and the governor has indicated he will sign the measure.
OpenAI also endorsed a bill in New York — the Responsible AI Safety and Education (RAISE) Act, which was signed last year and similarly requires AI developers to publish their safety protocols and safety incidents.
The company notably stopped short of fully endorsing and initially had concerns about California’s AI safety bill, S.B. 53. The bill, signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) last fall, established new transparency requirements for large AI labs, including mandated safety frameworks and transparency and safety incident reporting.
An OpenAI spokesperson said the firm had “productive conversations with California lawmakers about the bill from the company, adding the company was “happy with the outcome” and expressed its support for its signing.
Lehane noted OpenAI looked for bills that included provisions explicitly acknowledging the new state artificial intelligence rules could be overruled by a federal standard.
This language makes it a “little bit easier to ultimately, down the road, be able to put some of the political pieces in play to actually get that federal safety standard right,” Lehane said, adding the three bills “have spoken to the idea of having a national safety standard.”
When asked whether OpenAI is considering red states for this strategy, Lehane said the organiza…
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