Executives of the country's leading artificial intelligence companies are calling for added guardrails and regulations as AI platforms and models continue to increase capabilities but, so far, governments in Washington DC and in Lansing have been slow to act on the issue.
And absent a clear federal standard for AI regulation, it’s not clear companies will heed their own calls for a slowdown in development or follow inconsistent rules across states, researchers and advocates say.
Although more members of Congress are calling for some sort of framework, President Donald Trump has been cool to the idea of any AI regulation. In a Sept. 14 social media post, Trump said there’s already enough regulatory power over AI companies in place and calls for more were
part of a “conspiracy going on against AI and data centers.”
Michigan does have some a few laws on the books settings rules on how AI can be used but leaving AI policy to the states has created an inconsistent network of oversight, said Anjana Susarla, a professor and Director of the Center for Ethical and Socially Responsible Leadership at Michigan State University.
“It’s much better for companies to have a very unified system. They can’t do this state-by-state compliance,” Susarla said. “This kind of patchwork of AI laws is also a compliance nightmare for companies.”
The chorus calling for more federal standards has grown after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for slowing the pace of AI development to mitigate potential risks, like losing control of models or enabling bad actors to misuse them. Amodei’s call was even backed by competitors, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SpaceX’s Elon Musk.
The use of AI and generative AI has spiked in recent years as platforms like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and several others have become widely accessible. Generative AI is largely used to assist in common workplace tasks, like summarizing emails or preparing presentations. The standards Amodei and others have called for are typically aimed at AI programs, sometimes referred to as agents, acting on their own or being used to commit cybercrimes or attacks.
AI usage has also been linked to the expansion of hyperscale data centers, energy intensive facilities where the computer hardware needed to power web programs is housed. Although data centers power more functions than just AI programs, the proliferation of new, large facilities in Michigan and elsewhere has fueled debate in communities where residents are opposed to them.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Ann Arbor, is among those backing new AI rules. In a Sept. 15 letter outlining opposition to a data center project backed by the University of Michigan and Los Alamos National Laboratory in Ypsilanti Township, she said supporting AI innovation shouldn’t result in not having a regulatory framework in place.
“We cannot wait until something goes terribly wrong to establish guardrails,” Dingell wrote in the letter, released by her office. “We need strong standards for human oversight of AI, safety, transparency, accountability, bio-cybersecurity, energy use, and the data centers that power it.”
Having a regulatory framework in place for AI development would create an incentive for leading AI companies to heed their own calls for caution, Susarla said.
“The sort of independent oversight of AI models is not going to happen voluntarily because unless there is a system of carrots and sticks, we need someone to enforce it,” she said.
But with Trump’s antipathy to any federal AI regulatory framework (and the U.S. House adjourning until after the November elections), it seems doubtful Washington enacts any policy in the area soon.
AI policy has largely languished in Lansing
The patchwork of state-level AI regulations Susarla referred to varies. In 2025, all 50 states saw proposals related to AI introduced, with 38 states enacting some sort of regulation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In Michigan, laws on the books currently ban the use of AI to create nonconsensual deepfakes of sexualized imagery and require political campaigns to disclose the use of AI in certain materials.
A slew of other proposals regulating AI — from how it's used to how it’s developed — hasn’t moved through the Legislature, however.
And while tech executives warn of potentially catastrophic outcomes if AI development is left unchecked, there are consumer protection standards Michigan could enact, from protecting tenants from AI-based rent setting to cracking down on scammers using AI, said state Rep. Carrie Rheingans, D-Ann Arbor.
Rheingans isn’t anti-AI. She pointed to practical uses for the technology, like accelerating research processes in medicinal development. “At the same time, there's some really dangerous things that AI could be used for. And part of our job as elected officials, both at the state and federal level, is to protect our constituents from scams," she told the Free Press.
Last year, Rheingans introduced bills to ban the use of AI programs to determine claims for Medicaid and other health insurance programs on the health care marketplace. Another bill she introduced would ban landlords from using an AI-driven algorithm to determine average rental prices in an area and then instituting rent at their properties derived from the AI's calculations. But the proposals haven’t advanced through the committee process and seem unlikely to pass before the current legislative term expires at the end of the year.
Gideon D’Assandro, director of communications for Michigan House Republicans, noted the House passed legislation that resulted in the ban on nonconsensual deepfake content in 2025. That package, co-sponsored by Rep. Matthew Beirlein, R-Vassar, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. D’Assandro didn’t respond to an inquiry asking if AI regulations were a priority for House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township.
Rheingans said Democratic leadership in the House is talking about AI guardrail legislation in the event control of the chamber is flipped in the November election.
You can reach Arpan Lobo at alobo@freepress.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: As tech honchos call for regulation, AI policy has largely stalled
