Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios
For some companies, learning to live with the state-by-state system hasn't been as arduous as they originally thought.
The big picture: State legislators are copying bills and communicating on principles, laying the groundwork for potential alignment across the country on privacy and AI policy.
What they're saying: "We've deemed some state lawmakers a 'shadow Congress' on AI," Chandler Morse, vice president of public policy at Workday, told Axios.
- Keir Lamont, head of U.S. policy at the Future of Privacy Forum, said that "most companies are able to build out a compliance operation that encompasses the various variations between these state-level comprehensive privacy laws."
- Lamont: "There was much more alignment between these laws than many folks had expected."
Yes, but: Even as some states learn lessons from privacy and make attempts at uniformity in AI, there are still going to be many different state tech policy bills — even if it's just 20 approaches instead of an originally feared 50.
- For example, Maryland's recently passed data privacy law focuses more on restrictions on collecting personal information than existing models.
- That "raises the possibility of much more divergences with operational impacts across the different state approaches," Lamont said.
What we're watching: As state tech policy laws proliferate, legislators may be hesitant to support federal bills that would override them, should Congress get it together.
- California members of Congress, who've been fiercely protective of the state's privacy law, have spoken out against SB 1047, the AI bill on Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk.
The bottom line: Industry and civil society are reluctantly learning to live with different laws across the country even as they yearn for federal solutions.
- "I am seeing more cases of industry engaging with state legislators to craft what become model bills," Adam Kovacevich, head of the Chamber of Progress, told Axios.
- "Given the huge echo effect among states, I see a lot of cases where states copy each other's model bills. And when that happens, company compliance isn't too difficult."
