In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. However, social media can also lead to polarization and misunderstanding as author Chris Bail discusses in this episode of Democracy Works.
Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-CA, speaks at an AI conference on Capitol Hill with experts
WASHINGTON —- As House Republicans voted Thursday to pass a 10-year moratorium on AI regulation by states, Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-CA, and AI experts said the measure would be necessary to ensure US dominance in the industry.
“We want to make sure that AI continues to be led by the United States of America, and we want to make sure that our economy and our society realizes the potential benefits of AI deployment,” Obernolte said.
As Artificial Intelligence has the potential to revolutionize many aspects of society, federal and state leaders clash over the states’ ability to regulate it on their own.
According to data from the National Conference of State Legislators, legislation to regulate AI had already been introduced in 48 states. In 2024 alone, nearly 700 such bills were introduced, and 75 were adopted or enacted.
40 state attorneys general have co-signed a letter to Congress, urging them not to pass this measure.
“This bill does not propose any regulatory scheme to replace or supplement the laws enacted or currently under consideration by the states, leaving Americans entirely unprotected from the potential harms of AI,” the letter states.
However, Obernolte said leaving AI regulation up to the individual states could create a series of complex and confusing rules that make it difficult for innovators to operate.
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“We risk creating this very balkanized regulatory landscape of potentially 50 different state regulations going in 50 different, and in some cases wildly different directions,” Obernolte said during an event Thursday on Capitol Hill. “It would be a barrier to entry for everybody.”
The moratorium bill now awaits a vote in the Senate. It faces widespread opposition, mostly from Democrats but also some Republicans, who argue that it leaves Americans without safeguards from AI.
“We need those protections, and until we pass something that is federally preemptive, we can't call for a moratorium on those things,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
However, Obernolte addressed some of these concerns by pointing out that agencies already regulate AI in various ways. For example, he said that the Food and Drug Administration has already issued over 1,000 permits for the use of AI in medical devices.
Logan Kolas, the director of tech policy at the American Consumer Institute, said that part of the problem with states jumping to regulate AI without careful consideration is that the technology is so new that we do not understand the real problems.
“There's a lot of things we don't know, and that does require a bit of humility. As these provable harms come up, those are the things that we absolutely 100% should be addressing, but, trying to anticipate them, to think of the millions of possibilities of what could go wrong, is just unrealistic and not the way that we have done successful policy in the past,” said Kolas.
Perry Metzger, the chairman of the board of Alliance for the Future, a non-profit dedicated to helping lessen fears of AI, echoed Kolas’s claims and said that regulations on AI as a whole would be counterproductive because AI is merely a tool to accomplish things. He said the dangers of AI technology lie in how people use it, not the technology itself.
“We have a tradition [in this country] that I think is very important. That is, not blaming manufacturers for egregious and knowing misuses of their tools. We do not say that the Ford Motor Company is liable whenever someone uses an F-150 in a bank robbery. We have a feeling in our country that the people who choose to rob banks are responsible for that sort of misuse,” said Metzger.
Athan Yanos is a graduate student at Northwestern Medill in the Politics, Policy and Foreign Affairs specialization. He is a New York native. Prior to Medill, he graduated with an M.A. in Philosophy and Politics from the University of Edinburgh. He also hosts his own podcast dedicated to philosophy and international politics.
To read more of Athan's work, click HERE.
The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists. Learn how by clicking HERE.
The concept of AI hovering among the public.
The AI race that warrants the lion’s share of our attention and resources is not the one with China. Both superpowers should stop hurriedly pursuing AI advances for the sake of “beating” the other. We’ve seen such a race before. Both participants lose. The real race is against an unacceptable status quo: declining lifespans, increasing income inequality, intensifying climate chaos, and destabilizing politics. That status quo will drag on, absent the sorts of drastic improvements AI can bring about. AI may not solve those problems but it may accelerate our ability to improve collective well-being. That’s a race worth winning.
Geopolitical races have long sapped the U.S. of realizing a better future sooner. The U.S. squandered scarce resources and diverted talented staff to close the alleged missile gap with the USSR. President Dwight D. Eisenhower rightfully noted, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” He realized that every race comes at an immense cost. In this case, the country was “spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
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President John F. Kennedy failed to heed the guidance of his predecessor. He initiated yet another geopolitical contest by publicly challenging the USSR to a space race. Privately, he too knew that such a race required substantial trade-offs. Before Sputnik,Kennedy scoffed at spending precious funds on space endeavors. Following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Kennedy reversed course. In his search for a political win, he found space. The rest, of course, is history. It’s true that the nation’s pursuit of the moon generated significant direct and indirect benefits. What’s unknowable, though, iswhat benefits could have been realized if Kennedy pursued his original science agenda: large-scale desalination of seawater. That bold endeavor would have also created spin-off improvements in related fields.
Decades from now, the true “winner” of the AI race will be the country that competes in the only race that really matters—tackling the most pressing economic, social, and political problems. The country that wins that race will have a richer, healthier, and more resilient population. That country will endure when crises unfold. Others will crumble.
AI development and deployment involve finite resources. The chips, energy, and expertise that go into creating leading AI models are in short supply. Chips accumulated by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and other massive AI labs to train the next frontier model are chips not being used to address more socially useful ends. Likewise, an AI expert working on a new AI-driven missile system is an expert not working on how AI can solve problems that have long been put on the back burner in the name of winning the geopolitical race of the moment.
Imagine the good that could come about if instead of prioritizing the pursuit of an unreachable AI frontier, we turned already impressive models toward the problems that will shape our long-term communal success. Early signs suggest that a pivot to this race would immediately improve the status quo. First, consider the potential for rapid improvements in health brought about by better, more affordable drugs. According to the Boston Consulting Group, AI-based discoveries or designs have spurred 67 clinical trials of new drugs. AstraZeneca reported that AI had cut its drug discovery process from years to months.
Second, consider the possibility of providing every student with personalized tutoring—setting us on a path to again become the most educated and productive workforce the world over.AI programs deployed in Bhutan helped students learn math skills in a fraction of the time when compared to classmates who received traditional math instruction. Closer to home, Khanmigo—an AI platform designed by the Khan Academy—is giving students personalized lessons in 266 school districts across the United States.
Third, and finally, consider a world in which traffic fatalities were halved thanks to the broader adoption of autonomous vehicles. Autonomous Vehicle (AV) companies have leveraged AI to make rapid advances in the ability of their vehicles to drive in all conditions. Further focus on these efforts may finally make AVs the majority of cars on the road and, as a result, save thousands of lives.
To redirect our AI race toward societal benefit, we need concrete policy changes. Federal research funding should prioritize AI applications targeting our most pressing challenges—healthcare access, energy development, and educational opportunities. Complementing this approach, tax incentives could reward companies that deploy AI for measurable social impact rather than pure market dominance. Additionally, public-private partnerships, similar to the one between Texas A&M and NVIDIA involving the creation of a high-performance supercomputer, could create innovation hubs focused specifically on using AI to solve regional problems, from drought management in the Southwest to infrastructure resilience on the coasts.
The choice before us is clear: we can continue the myopic pursuit of AI superiority for its own sake, or we can choose the wiser race—one toward a more innovative and prosperous future. History will not judge us by which nation first reached some arbitrary artificial intelligence threshold but by how we wielded this transformative technology to solve problems that have plagued humanity for generations. By redirecting our finite resources—chips, energy, and human ingenuity—toward these challenges, we can ensure that the true winners of the AI revolution will be all of us, not merely one flag or another. That is a victory worth pursuing with the full measure of our national commitment and creativity.
Kevin Frazier is an AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and Author of the Appleseed AI substack.
Closeup of Software engineering team engaged in problem-solving and code analysis.
Artificial intelligence (AI) promises a future once confined to science fiction: personalized medicine accounting for your specific condition, accelerated scientific discovery addressing the most difficult challenges, and reimagined public education designed around AI tutors suited to each student's learning style. We see glimpses of this potential on a daily basis. Yet, as AI capabilities surge forward at exponential speed, the laws and regulations meant to guide them remain anchored in the twentieth century (if not the nineteenth or eighteenth!). This isn't just inefficient; it's dangerously reckless.
For too long, our approach to governing new technologies, including AI, has been one of cautious incrementalism—trying to fit revolutionary tools into outdated frameworks. We debate how century-old privacy torts apply to vast AI training datasets, how liability rules designed for factory machines might cover autonomous systems, or how copyright law conceived for human authors handles AI-generated creations. We tinker around the edges, applying digital patches to analog laws.
This constant patching creates what we might call "legal tech debt." Imagine trying to run sophisticated AI software on a computer from the 1980s—it might technically boot up, but it will be slow, prone to crashing, and incapable of performing its intended function. Similarly, forcing AI into legal structures designed for a different technological era means we stifle its potential benefits while failing to adequately manage its risks. Outdated privacy rules hinder the development of AI for public good projects; ambiguous liability standards chill innovation in critical sectors; fragmented regulations create uncertainty and inefficiency.
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Allowing this legal tech debt to accumulate isn't just about missed opportunities; It breeds public distrust when laws seem irrelevant to lived reality. It invites policy chaos, as seen with the frantic, often ineffective, attempts to regulate social media after years of neglect. It risks a future where transformative technology evolves haphazardly, governed by stopgap measures and reactive panic rather than thoughtful design. With AI, the stakes are simply too high for such recklessness.
We need a fundamentally different approach. Instead of incremental tinkering, we need bold, systemic change. We need to be willing to leapfrog—to bypass outdated frameworks and design legal and regulatory systems specifically for the age of AI.
What does this leapfrog approach look like? It requires three key shifts in thinking:
First, we must look ahead. Policymakers and experts need to engage seriously with plausible future scenarios for AI development, learning from the forecasting methods used by technologists. This isn’t about predicting the future with certainty but about understanding the range of possibilities—from accelerating breakthroughs to unexpected plateaus—and anticipating the legal pressures and opportunities each might create. We need to proactively identify which parts of our legal infrastructure are most likely to buckle under the strain of advanced AI.
Second, we must embrace fundamental redesign. Armed with foresight, we must be willing to propose and implement wholesale reforms, not just minor rule changes. If AI requires vast datasets for public benefit, perhaps we need entirely new data governance structures—like secure, publicly accountable data trusts or commons—rather than just carving out exceptions to FERPA or HIPAA. If AI can personalize education, perhaps we need to rethink rigid grade-based structures and accreditation standards, not just approve AI tutors within the old system. This requires political courage and a willingness to question long-held assumptions about how legal systems should operate.
Third, we must build in adaptability. Given the inherent uncertainty of AI’s trajectory, any new legal framework must be dynamic, not static. We need laws designed to evolve. This means incorporating mechanisms like mandatory periodic reviews tied to real-world outcomes, sunset clauses that force reconsideration of rules, specialized bodies empowered to update technical standards quickly, and even using AI itself to help monitor the effectiveness and impacts of regulations in real-time. We need systems that learn and adapt, preventing the accumulation of new tech debt.
Making this shift won't be easy. It demands a new level of ambition from our policymakers, a greater willingness among legal experts to think beyond established doctrines, and broader public engagement on the fundamental choices AI presents. But the alternative—continuing to muddle through with incremental fixes—is far riskier. It’s a path toward unrealized potential, unmanaged risks, and a future where technology outpaces our ability to govern it wisely.
AI offers incredible possibilities but realizing them requires more than just brilliant code. It requires an equally ambitious upgrade to our legal and regulatory operating system. It’s time to stop patching the past and start designing the future. It’s time to leapfrog.
Kevin Frazier is an AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and Author of the Appleseed AI substack.
“Student journalists are uniquely positioned to take on the challenges of complicating the narrative about how we see each other, putting forward new solutions to how we can work together and have dialogue across difference,” said Maxine Rich, the Program Manager with Common Ground USA. I had the chance to interview her earlier this year about Common Ground Journalism, a new initiative to support students reporting in contentious times.
A partnership with The Fulcrum and the Latino News Network (LNN), I joined Maxine and Nicole Donelan, Program Assistant with Common Ground USA, as co-instructor of the first Common Ground Journalism cohort, which ran for six weeks between January and March 2025.
The sessions integrated Common Ground USA principles of “campuses, which can model our nation’s highest ideals: coming together across differences to serve the common good,” and Solutions Journalism Network’s “to transform journalism so that all people have access to news that helps them envision and build a more equitable and sustainable world.”
Concepts like The Power Of Self Narrative, about how our lives can powerfully shape our resilience to challenges, and help others through their blind spots, resonated with cohorts like Maggie Rhoads, a student at George Washington University. “My problems as a journalist are often the same as others from across the country. Knowing this definitely makes me feel less alone in my reporting journey,” she said.
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Maggie now writes regularly for the Fulcrum. I invite you to read her stories on how legislation and policy impact communities by clicking HERE.
Georgetown University student Alexis Tamm agrees. “I had an amazing experience as a member of the first Common Ground cohort! The program introduced me to solutions journalism very thoroughly,” she said. Solutions journalism is rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems, which includes these key elements: response, insight, evidence, and limitations.
Instead of just highlighting the problems challenging a community, solutions journalism’s approach to news reporting explains how and why responses are working, or are not working. The goal is to present people with a truer, more complete view of these issues,
I am mentoring Alexis with an upcoming article that will be published on the Fulcrum, about a program helping formerly incarcerated individuals get the resources they need to integrate back into society properly.
Feedback collected at the end of the Common Ground Journalism initiative found that most students in the first cohort agree or strongly agree that Common Ground Journalism made them feel more comfortable reporting on minority perspectives and humanizing opposing political opinions.
I am happy to share that the Fulcrum and LNN will join the next session, which will begin in September! Students interested in applying can get more information and fill out a form by clicking HERE.
By reporting on diverse viewpoints and issues, journalism fosters public debate and encourages civic participation. That is why the Fulcrum is committed to mentoring students with valuable guidance and feedback, allowing them to navigate the challenges of journalism while fostering a deeper understanding of their responsibilities as journalists.
The publication has a longstanding relationship with Northwestern University's Medill on the Hill Program. Student journalists pitch stories about how democracy unfolds in Washington, D.C. Their quality reporting, often featured on the Fulcrum, provides valuable perspectives that widen our audience’s viewpoints.
Through that alliance, I met Atmika Iyer, a graduate student in Northwestern Medill’s Politics, Policy, and Foreign Affairs reporting program who is an intern with the Fulcrum this spring. Check out her work by clicking HERE.
I will work similarly with Duke University student Bennett Gillespie, who will join the Fulcrum as an intern in June.
The Fulcrum has joined LNN and NPR’s Midwest Newsroom in sponsoring Jessica Meza from the University of Lincoln - Nebraska, as this year’s Hortencia Zavala Foundation Summer Intern. Meza will not only benefit from the coaching and visibility of three news outlets, but will work side by side with journalists in the Nebraska Public Media newsroom.
This summer, I will lead the first Fulcrum Fellowship, where five students from across the country will be trained in solutions journalism and complicating narrative techniques to produce stories that counter the one-dimensional narratives too common in mainstream media.
I am currently teaching a solutions journalism focused class at the University of Washington. Students like Lindsay Kim are producing stories that will be published on the Fulcrum, like The World’s Displaced Populations Are Being Displaced in Washington State.
Following months of research, canvassing, and listening to community needs, I am mentoring young journalists in a News Ambassadors project, which will provide greater visibility to marginalized communities in Chicagoland. Learn more by clicking HERE.
Nurturing the next generation of journalists is a collaborative effort that the Fulcrum takes seriously. After all, a well-informed electorate is essential for a healthy democracy, as it enables individuals to engage meaningfully in the political process.
Editor’s Note: Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and a board member of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, the parent organization of The Fulcrum. He is the publisher of the Latino News Network and an accredited Solutions Journalism and Complicating the Narratives trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network.
