By Jody Godoy
(Reuters) -The president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters urged Congress on Wednesday to scrap a proposal that would effectively bar states from regulating artificial intelligence for 10 years, calling it “a disaster for communities and working people.”
Teamsters president Sean O’Brien, who spoke at the Republican National Convention last year, said in a letter posted on social media site X that the measure “denies citizens the ability to make choices at the local or state level.”
“Pure and simple, it is a give-away to Big Tech companies who reap economic value by continuing to operate in an unregulated void where their decisions and behavior are accountable to no one,” he said.
The letter from the head of the powerful union that represents more than 1.3 million workers, many of them in blue-collar jobs such as trucking, is the latest instance of bipartisan pushback against the measure in the lead-up to crucial votes by the U.S. Senate this week.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz authored the version of the measure included in President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill. Proponents say the measure is necessary to allow small AI companies to experiment and lift the burden of complying with laws that differ from state to state.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy; Editing by Jan Harvey)
