Cantwell blocked an AI regulation moratorium. Big tech will be back | Opinion

I have filed more than 1,200 lawsuits against predatory tech companies. I have seen firsthand that the harmful effects of AI products on kids are not a thing of the future: They’re already here, and they’re devastating.

That’s why on July 1, as most Americans slept, I waited. Along with so many others, I had been making calls and fielding messages for the past 48 hours and still couldn’t sleep. Instead, I watched as a truly bipartisan Senate coalition delivered a critical victory for everyone advocating in the consumer rights and child safety spaces.

What most Americans did not realize was that big tech lobbyists had convinced congressional leaders to slip into the budget reconciliation bill a devastating AI moratorium provision. Words that would have meant more unspeakable harms to American kids.

Instead, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, and our own Sen. Maria Cantwell teamed up to lead 99 senators in doing the right thing. They decisively scuttled a provision that would have slipped through as a ride along to the “Big Beautiful Bill,” banning states from regulating AI for years while threatening to retroactively strip critical protections from millions.

That is not how democracy is supposed to work, and thankfully, two incredibly brave senators from opposite sides of the aisle worked to set things right in this space.

I have seen how children and families suffer thanks to digital products deliberately designed to addict and escalate for the sake of market share. I work with hundreds of families whose children died after being targeted by AI-driven algorithms engineered to maximize engagement at any cost. AI technologies are being designed and distributed to children with no transparency or safety testing and, more importantly, no corporate conscience or regard for human life.

America is only just starting to learn the truth. We are starting to mobilize in defense of our children, through basic principles of corporate accountability – universal truths like not being okay with for-profit companies abusing and exploiting kids by design.

Which is why tech companies are so eager for an AI moratorium. The provision that Sens. Cantwell, Blackburn, and their bipartisan colleagues successfully removed from the budget bill would have frozen a broad and growing state-level effort to grapple with these very dangers.

It would have created new hurdles for the thousands of parents, school districts and attorneys generals seeking justice for children harmed in connection with defective and inherently dangerous products. It would have made it difficult and costly for many states to enact basic transparency, safety and decency rules, including things like requiring a company to disclose when it has you conversing with one of its AI chatbots instead of a real person and not allowing AI to deny your health insurance claims. These are critical protections, particularly when one considers the frequency with which American children are interacting with AI, including and especially bots.

Thankfully, our elected representatives said no. As Sen. Cantwell put it: “The Senate came together tonight to say that we can’t just run over good state consumer protection laws. States can fight robocalls, deepfakes, and provide safe autonomous vehicle laws.”

But big tech will be back. It always is. It will try to break in through another side door to democracy as many times as it takes. House Republicans have already publicly signaled such a plan. What we need to remember when that happens is that we, the people, are every bit as powerful and even more powerful than big tech.

This showed us what can happen when everyone works together. This battle was won because broad coalitions on every side of the aisle came together to protect kids, rather than predatory tech companies. Supporters included, among others, 17 Republican governors, dozens of state attorneys general and lawmakers from every state.

This proved that Congress is able to work together, and that we need to put aside the disputes these companies foment and, instead, focus on what matters most – our children’s basic right to be safe from corporate predation. We are not (in the words Meta has used to describe tweens) “herd animals.” We are parents, grandparents, guardians, family, friends and any other name that signifies the fact that we care about what happens to kids and will not stand by silently while companies harm them as a matter of business strategy.

This recent victory means that states can continue to innovate in protecting kids online. At least for now. It also means that the next time they come for our kids, we will be ready. In a political environment where bipartisanship is rare, senators from both parties found a way to unite around one simple principle: protecting our kids is more urgent than protecting a bottom line.

We must all learn from and model the leadership of Sens. Blackburn and Cantwell, who worked across the aisle to put kids first and create a better, safer country for all Americans.