The hottest AI (AI) innovation news of 2025 is coming from China, with cutting edge products Deepseek R1 and Manus Creating a modern dayThe moment of sputnik“The US “walking call” was previously thought to be far ahead of the world. This means that the next governance choice will have a profound impact on America's innovation, competitiveness and geopolitical security.
The US stands at an important intersection where you can choose from two different AI policy paths. It leads to freedom of innovation and freedom of speech. The other leads to European-style commercial transactions and content regulation suppression.
Unfortunately, federal and state legislators are heading in many different directions. The Trump administration has taken steps to embrace the AI opportunity and growth agenda of boosting supplies, but instead many states have given serious consideration to European regulatory models.
According to one AI Bill Tracking ServiceLess than three months after 2025, nearly 900 AI-related measures have already been in motion, exceeding the total number of AI bills introduced in all of 2024. Most are state bills that somehow expand government control of algorithmic systems.
This unprecedented regulatory activity could undermine AI innovation and investment in America by multiplying and compounding the hassle of parochial paperwork and compliance costs. Many of these state proposals follow the European Union (EU) regulations playbook with laws that essentially mimic the new EUAI ACT.
As European experience proves, it is a recipe for technology stagnation. Europe suffered across the continent due to 30 years of top-down overregulation Competitive crisis And there are no major global digital technology leaders. Today's major digital exports in the EU are cookie pop-ups and compliance forms, not world-class companies and products.
Why do states want to import these failed policies into America?
Colorado I've already passed One such Euro-style AI law was in May last year, but Governor Jared Police (D) Recognised It will create a “complex compliance structure for all AI developers and deployers” and “tampering innovation and deter competition.” Unfortunately, Colorado's law and dozens of imitation “algorithmic discrimination” bill combines the worst elements of the EU techno program with the Biden administration's pushy AI vision. Abandoned wisely.
These state bills aim to create equivalents to AI's pre-crime sector, allowing bureaucrats to preemptively steal examples of potentially unfair or “biased” AI-generated outputs of applications that have not yet been deployed. To ensure that AI systems are in the “public interest,” “consequential decisions” require an “algorithm impact assessment.”
Imagine that similar vague and technocratic mandate was imposed by 50 different state internet stations at the dawn of the personal computing era. The revolution in America's digital technology would have been on fire. Fortunately, in the mid-1990s, policymakers chose instead. Pro-Fridom Paradigm For the Internet and digital commerce, America has poured innovation and speech opportunities. The key to this was a policy regime that protected the digital market from state and local overregulation.
Similarly, legislatures should comprehensively preempt conditions and local AI regulations that hinder interstate algorithms' commerce and speech. Even the Colorado police have it I was asked The legislature states, “a cohesive federal approach that is necessary… limits the burden of various compliance on innovators, booking, and ensuring equal arenas across the state lines.”
There are not enough serious preemptive candidates, federal lawmakers said,AI Learning Period Moratorium“It limits new federal and state AI regulation mandates that undermine competitive national markets, giving AI entrepreneurs breathing room to launch bold new ideas and products to meet global competition.
Some issues or sectors covered by traditional state authorities must be sculpted, including education and law enforcement. However, Congress can take steps to clarify what AI models and applications are covered by federal law.
State lawmakers who want to actively protect AI opportunities in the United States should embrace policies that protect freedom of code, calculation and innovation. The so-called “right to calculate” measurement is moving Montana and New Hampshire It protects the rights of individuals to access and use computing systems, treating overregulation as an infringement of citizens' fundamental rights and free expressions to property.
Utah has it I passed again An AI Act that creates a “Learning Institute Program” that encourages innovators to work with state officials to work with state officials to study flexible approaches for already regulated sectors. This approach represents a unique, time-tested, American innovation policy paradigm, which is more agile, progressive and careful compared to European ones.
The American AI Opportunity Agenda must embrace freedom, reject fear, and give the wonderful innovators of our nation a green light to redevelop the world-leading life-rich technology. But state regulators must keep them out of the way.
Adam Thierer is a resident senior fellow of the R Street Institute's Technology and Innovation Team
