2024 Showed It Really Is Possible to Rein in AI
Nearly all the big AI news this year was about how fast the technology is progressing, the harms it’s causing, and speculation about how soon it will grow past the point where humans can control it. But 2024 also saw governments make significant inroads into regulating algorithmic systems. Here is a breakdown of the most important AI legislation and regulatory efforts from the past year at the state, federal, and international levels.
U.S. state lawmakers took the lead on AI regulation in 2024, introducing hundreds of bills—some had modest goals like creating study committees, while others would have imposed serious civil liability on AI developers in the event their creations cause catastrophic harm to society. The vast majority of the bills failed to pass, but several states enacted meaningful legislation that could serve as models for other states or Congress (assuming Congress ever starts functioning again).
As AI slop flooded social media ahead of the election, politicians in both parties got behind anti-deepfake laws. More than 20 states now have prohibitions against deceptive AI-generated political advertisements in the weeks immediately before an election. Bills aimed at curbing AI-generated pornography, particularly images of minors, also received strong bipartisan support in states including Alabama, California, Indiana, North Carolina, and South Dakota.
