Commentary. The United States is approaching an avoidable policy failure on artificial intelligence. The technology is advancing quickly, companies are warning that stronger safeguards may be necessary, and lawmakers are still arguing over whether Washington should act at all. Our view is straightforward: the country should regulate AI now, but narrowly and intelligently, before a crisis dictates rules written in panic.
The case for action is no longer limited to science-fiction scenarios. Policymakers and researchers are debating risks to children, employment, intellectual property, cybersecurity and national security, while frontier models become more capable. The Conference Board says recent incidents and advances in Chinese AI systems have intensified calls for a pause, even as political consensus remains elusive. Its analysis also notes that current U.S. policy has generally prioritized acceleration since 2025.
That combination—rapid deployment and weak common standards—is precisely what public policy is meant to address. A voluntary promise is not a substitute for accountability when companies compete to release increasingly powerful systems. Recent reporting indicates that major technology executives and researchers have called for federal guardrails, while the absence of a national framework leaves companies facing a patchwork of state requirements. The Detroit Free Press reports that 38 states enacted some form of AI regulation in 2025 after proposals were introduced in all 50 states.
What regulation should—and should not—do
That does not mean endorsing a sweeping moratorium. A blanket pause would be difficult to define, difficult to enforce and potentially damaging to medical research, accessibility tools, productivity and national security. It could also reward less transparent actors, including overseas competitors, while established firms use compliance costs to entrench their market power.
Nor should lawmakers write rules around every alarming headline. AI is not one product or one risk. A customer-service chatbot, a diagnostic system and a frontier model capable of autonomous software activity require different standards. The current debate often collapses these distinctions, making meaningful legislation harder.
A better approach would begin with duties proportionate to risk. Developers of the most advanced models should conduct independent evaluations before deployment, document dangerous capabilities, report serious incidents and demonstrate that they can halt or constrain systems when necessary. High-impact uses in hiring, credit, policing, health care and education should face transparency and appeal requirements. Consumers should know when synthetic media or automated decisions affect them.
These measures would not guarantee safety. They would, however, establish a floor beneath which competition could not fall. They would also give regulators information that voluntary industry statements cannot reliably provide.
The strongest objections deserve an answer
Industry and free-market critics are right about one danger: poorly designed rules can slow beneficial innovation and hand an advantage to the largest companies. They are also right that regulators may lack the technical expertise to govern a fast-changing field. Those concerns argue for flexible standards, sunset clauses and independent technical capacity—not for leaving the public with no enforceable protections.
National-security advocates make a different but serious point. If the United States imposes unilateral limits while China and other rivals move ahead, American firms could lose talent, investment and strategic ground. That is why safeguards should be coordinated with democratic allies, particularly on model testing, computing infrastructure and export controls. A fragmented system is bad policy; international cooperation is better than regulatory paralysis.
The alternative is already visible: states are moving independently, Congress has debated without passing comprehensive legislation, and the executive branch has relied heavily on voluntary or targeted measures. CNN describes the federal response as a disjointed scramble, while a legal analysis from TLT documents new regulatory initiatives in the United Kingdom and Europe, including implementation work under the EU AI Act. TLT’s October brief also reports continuing attention to child safety, digital identity and frontier-model oversight.
Washington should not wait for perfect agreement about AI’s ultimate trajectory. It should pass a focused first framework, fund competent oversight and revise the rules as evidence improves. The choice is not between banning innovation and permitting everything. It is between governing a consequential technology deliberately—or allowing the next emergency, lawsuit or preventable harm to govern it for us.