Ask Sen. Josh Hawley about tech regulation and the Missouri Republican usually has a ready answer: Let people sue.
It was Hawley’s answer when he first came to Congress in 2019 with the aim of taking on large tech companies. It was his answer during a February Senate Judiciary Committee meeting when experts talked about the need for more safety for children online. And it’s his answer to how Congress should address the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence.
“I think that giving people the right, that individual right to sue, is a powerful way to check the company’s power,” Hawley said. “I think that is a more effective way, in general, than giving a bunch of administrative agencies authority, who then get immediately captured by the industry.”
Anna Lenhart, a policy fellow at George Washington University’s Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics, said she believes it’s a misconception that lawmakers are just now learning about the complexities of technology. She said a bill sponsored last year called the American Data Privacy Protection Act would have been able to handle some of then issues that will arise from generative A.I.
“The issues, the problems, the concerns, the things that we’re worried about with this technology, are not actually new to Congress,” Lenhart said
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