Big Tech’s desperate last push at AI regulation
Big Tech’s desperate last push at AI regulation
大型科技公司在人工智能监管方面的孤注一掷
With midterms looming, the White House is proposing a shotgun marriage between child safety and AI boosters. 随着中期选举临近，白宫正提议将“儿童安全”与“人工智能推广”进行一场“强迫式联姻”。
For months, Big Tech’s Washington lobbyists have chased after the holy grail of pro-AI legislation: preemption. This would be a comprehensive federal law, passed in Congress and signed by the president, applying one set of AI rules across the entire country and overriding the legally messy state-by-state approach to regulation. For months, lobbyists have run into roadblocks and incurred nationwide political blowback, and they now face the possibility that after the midterms, Congress will flip to hostile Democrats unwilling to work with them. 几个月来，大型科技公司在华盛顿的说客们一直在追逐人工智能立法领域的“圣杯”：联邦优先权（Preemption）。这将是一项由国会通过并由总统签署的全面联邦法律，在全国范围内统一适用一套人工智能规则，从而取代目前混乱的各州监管模式。数月以来，说客们屡屡碰壁并引发了全国性的政治反弹，他们现在面临着一种可能：中期选举后，国会可能会转向对他们并不友好的民主党人手中，届时对方将不愿与他们合作。
But their final, most desperate attempt at preemption is coming with new baggage, related to an entirely different fight in Congress that predates the public launch of ChatGPT: child safety. 然而，他们最后、也是最孤注一掷的“联邦优先权”尝试，却带上了新的包袱——这与国会中一场早在 ChatGPT 公开发布前就开始的、完全不同的斗争有关：儿童安全。
Earlier this week, reports leaked that the White House had told child safety groups and Big Tech companies that it would endorse a slate of children’s online safety laws backed by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), the coauthor of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), as part of an overall preemption package. While the issue of online safety does meaningfully overlap with AI, it’s only one facet of a much larger, complex set of issues that would need to be addressed in a truly comprehensive law: frontier model safety, discrimination, environmental impact, and so forth. 本周早些时候，有泄露消息称，白宫已告知儿童安全组织和大型科技公司，作为整体“联邦优先权”方案的一部分，白宫将支持由参议员玛莎·布莱克本（共和党，田纳西州）——《儿童在线安全法案》（KOSA）的共同起草人——所支持的一系列儿童在线安全法律。虽然在线安全问题确实与人工智能有实质性的重叠，但这只是一个真正全面的法律所需要解决的庞大且复杂问题中的一个方面：前沿模型安全、歧视、环境影响等等。
Regardless, the potential deal has hit one snag: The White House had apparently not informed House Republicans, which had just passed their own version of KOSA, that it was going with Blackburn’s legislation as a vehicle. Democrats who’d worked with Blackburn on the Senate’s flavor of KOSA were allegedly left out of the loop, too. On top of that, there was a separate, bipartisan-backed AI preemption bill currently floating around the House. 无论如何，这项潜在的协议遇到了一个障碍：白宫显然没有通知众议院共和党人（他们刚刚通过了自己版本的 KOSA），称其将采用布莱克本的立法作为载体。据称，那些曾与布莱克本在参议院版 KOSA 上合作过的民主党人也被排除在决策圈之外。此外，众议院目前还有另一项由两党支持的独立人工智能优先权法案在流转。
It resulted in a week of total confusion for backers of either policy: AI preemption and child safety might be lumped together in order to ensure preemption gets signed into law, but whose version of child safety gets passed is unclear. Was it the Senate’s stricter KOSA? Was it the looser version backed by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA)? And where was the White House in all of this? 这导致支持这两项政策的人陷入了一周的彻底混乱：人工智能优先权和儿童安全可能会被捆绑在一起，以确保优先权法案能够签署生效，但究竟通过哪个版本的儿童安全法案尚不清楚。是参议院更严格的 KOSA？还是众议院多数党领袖史蒂夫·斯卡利斯（共和党，路易斯安那州）支持的更宽松版本？而白宫在这其中又扮演了什么角色？
“No one knows really who’s driving this thing,” a Republican lobbyist for a midsize tech company told The Verge. “Everyone is deeply, deeply, deeply skeptical of [the bill’s] movement, because everyone is on such different pages. I think the House is not going to move anything that Blackburn wants.” “没人真正知道是谁在主导这件事，”一家中型科技公司的共和党说客告诉《The Verge》。“每个人都对（该法案的）进展深表怀疑，因为大家的立场完全不同。我认为众议院不会通过任何布莱克本想要的东西。”
Though the AI regulatory fight has caused huge fissures between GOP leadership and their populist members, President Donald Trump himself has called for the passage of an AI preemption bill, meaning that the Republican Party must somehow make this happen. These days, the White House’s policy wonks are trying to finesse a preemption approach influenced by Mike Davis, a Trump-allied lawyer and the founder of the Article III Project, who led a successful attempt to kill a different AI moratorium in the Senate last year. 尽管人工智能监管之争在共和党领导层与其民粹主义成员之间造成了巨大的裂痕，但唐纳德·特朗普总统本人已呼吁通过一项人工智能优先权法案，这意味着共和党必须设法实现这一目标。近来，白宫的政策专家们正试图在迈克·戴维斯的影响下完善一种优先权方案。戴维斯是一位与特朗普结盟的律师，也是“第三条修正案项目”（Article III Project）的创始人，他去年曾领导了一次成功的行动，在参议院否决了另一项人工智能暂停法案。
Broadly speaking, to win Davis’ approval, preemption law should meaningfully protect a set of values Davis called the “Four Cs”: children, conservatives, creators, and communities. Some of those values were included in the White House’s proposed draft of a comprehensive AI law, released in March of this year, and the inclusion of KOSA satisfied the “children” requirement. But Davis told The Verge that he wanted any legislation to address all four. “There is no chance in hell AI preemption will pass if it does not address the Four Cs. I will make damn sure of that. Again.” 从广义上讲，要赢得戴维斯的认可，优先权法案必须切实保护戴维斯所称的“四个C”价值观：儿童（Children）、保守派（Conservatives）、创作者（Creators）和社区（Communities）。白宫今年3月发布的全面人工智能法案草案中包含了一些此类价值观，而纳入 KOSA 则满足了“儿童”这一要求。但戴维斯告诉《The Verge》，他希望任何立法都能涵盖所有这四个方面。“如果人工智能优先权法案不解决这‘四个C’，它绝对不可能通过。我会确保这一点。再说一遍。”
Getting KOSA passed, however, involves reconciling a massive difference between the House and Senate versions of the same bill. The Senate’s version would require tech companies to assume a “duty of care,” preemptive measures to protect young users, and would extend that responsibility to AI companies as well. However, the House version, spearheaded by Scalise, diluted that provision late last November, to the fury of child safety advocates. The House’s exclusion from the White House’s discussions, therefore, was notable to onlookers. “[Blackburn] genuinely does not want House KOSA,” noted Michael Toscano, senior fellow and director of the Family First Technology Initiative for the conservative Institute for Family Studies. 然而，要通过 KOSA，就必须调和同一法案在众议院和参议院版本之间的巨大分歧。参议院版本要求科技公司承担“注意义务”，采取预防措施保护年轻用户，并将这一责任扩展到人工智能公司。然而，由斯卡利斯牵头的众议院版本在去年11月下旬淡化了这一条款，引发了儿童安全倡导者的愤怒。因此，众议院被排除在白宫的讨论之外，引起了旁观者的注意。保守派家庭研究所（Institute for Family Studies）家庭优先技术倡议高级研究员兼主任迈克尔·托斯卡诺指出：“（布莱克本）真心不想要众议院版的 KOSA。”
Even if Trump were to whip the House Republicans into line, they’d have another problem: the congressional Democrats, who’d also learned of Blackburn’s negotiations with the White House at the same time the House Republicans did. Though Senate KOSA was cosponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and overwhelmingly passed 91–3 in 2024, they had not been aware that their legislation would now be handcuffed to the unpopular goal of AI preemption. “If they [Blackburn and the White House] are looking at a standalone bill, it’ll have to go through the Senate,” said an AI policy advocate, noting that a new version of this bill would then require 60 votes — and therefore, Democrats — to pass. 即使特朗普能让众议院共和党人统一立场，他们还会面临另一个问题：国会民主党人。他们和众议院共和党人几乎同时得知了布莱克本与白宫的谈判。尽管参议院版的 KOSA 是由理查德·布卢门撒尔参议员（民主党，康涅狄格州）共同发起的，并于2024年以91票对3票的压倒性优势获得通过，但他们并不知道自己的立法现在会被与“人工智能优先权”这一不受欢迎的目标捆绑在一起。“如果他们（布莱克本和白宫）考虑的是一项独立法案，它就必须通过参议院，”一位人工智能政策倡导者表示，并指出该法案的新版本将需要60票才能通过，因此必须获得民主党人的支持。
And even if the bill had some amount of popularity, the schedule might not allow for it. “It is mid June. You have a month and a half before people leave for [five-week] recess. And then it’s [general] election season,” said the AI policy advocate. “There’s just no way.” 即便该法案有一定的受欢迎程度，时间表可能也不允许。“现在是6月中旬。距离人们离开去休（五周）长假还有一个半月。然后就是（大选）季节了，”这位人工智能政策倡导者说。“根本没戏。”