Artificial Intelligence

The Grok bikini controversy highlights real harms from AI misuse, but it also shows that the right response is enforcing existing laws, holding bad actors accountable, and pursuing tech-neutral, proportionate policies—rather than rushing into broad, AI-specific regulation that risks undermining free expression and innovation.

New York’s AI safety law claims alignment with California, but its small deviations create duplicative state requirements that fragment U.S. AI policy and increase compliance costs without improving safety.

If the year ahead in technology and innovation policy lives up to its potential, it could be a consequential one because there is a long list of important issues on the table. Herein, we offer 10 that are on top of our minds.

A report finds that firms that are 125 miles from the closest AI hotspot, defined as an area with over 1000 AI publications or patents, experienced 17 percent lower AI job growth between 2007 and 2019.

The Internet may be forever, but regulatory frameworks should not be. Decisions made today about web crawling will help determine where the next generation of AI leadership emerges—whether in Europe, the United States, or elsewhere.

AI isn’t destroying jobs; it’s creating them. At least in 2024, the surge in AI activity and data center construction generated more jobs than AI displaced.

Detractors of capitalism argue that it took over fifty years for the British Industrial Revolution’s benefits to reach average workers. That narrative is at best contested and, at worst, wrong.

The Trump administration’s decision to allow H200 chip sales to China is strategically sound because it keeps Chinese firms reliant on U.S. technology, supports American chipmakers’ R&D, and preserves U.S. competitive advantage, though imposing a 25 percent fee undermines these benefits.

If we’re lucky, AI will restore the productivity growth that has eluded us for 15 years—not through dystopian transformation, but through steady, incremental improvements across the economy.

The Center for Data Innovation recommends that the establishment and implementation of the American AI Exports Program maximizes the expansion of U.S. AI technology and reinforces American leadership globally.