Opinion: Big Beautiful Bill’s AI regulation moratorium would imperil Minnesota workers and consumers

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

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This article was published on June 30 as U.S. Senate approval of its version of the budget reconciliation bill was still pending. The proposed moratorium on AI regulations that the article discusses ultimately was struck from the Senate’s legislation.

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Recently, Amazon’s CEO sent a letter to 350,000 employees with a simple message: Artificial intelligence (AI) is coming for their jobs. Amazon workers are far from alone. Microsoft is already in the process of cutting thousands of jobs due to AI-driven changes. These examples underscore the accelerating pace of AI’s disruption to the American workforce.

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans don’t seem to care. Instead, they are set on obliterating any ability to protect workers through AI regulation.

That leaves Minnesota in a dangerous position. As we pointed out in a report published in January, nearly 500,000 working Minnesotans are at high risk of job disruption from AI, making our state one of the most impacted in the nation. While alarming, our analysis likely underestimated the impact of AI in several ways.

But AI’s impact extends beyond job replacement in ways that could impact all workers. Companies are increasingly using AI for tasks like screening job applications and even analyzing facial expressions during video interviews to generate an “employability” score. These practices can carry hidden biases, penalizing applicants unfairly. Such tools threaten to erode workplace fairness and transparency.

Moreover, AI-driven workplace surveillance is becoming increasingly invasive, particularly in efforts to undermine workplace organizing. Amazon employed AI to monitor workers’ social media accounts during a recent union drive, accessing private Facebook groups to identify and fire workers seeking better working conditions. Such moves threaten to undercut worker power at a time when public support for unions has soared to its highest level in decades.

Finally, AI poses risks to economic fairness. Companies can now use AI-driven algorithms to set wages individually, determining precisely the lowest wage each worker is willing to accept. Just as these algorithms allow workers to be paid differently for the same work, they have also led to consumers being charged differently for the same goods. This combination of AI price- and wage-fixing will spare no one.

Amid this accelerating threat, federal policy has shifted dramatically, and not for the better. The Trump administration recently repealed Biden-era AI regulations designed to offer some worker protections and foster responsible AI development.

Worse yet, Congress has been planning to include a moratorium on state-level AI regulation as part of the massive budget bill that was passed by the House in May and was under debate in the Senate on Monday.

This unprecedented federal overreach has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum, with even conservative lawmakers expressing alarm. In contrast to these statements, Minnesota’s congressional Republicans all supported the bill containing the moratorium. It’s not too late for them to join the rising chorus of critics and recognize that allowing this moratorium to become law would strip Minnesota of the power to protect our workers precisely when they need it most.

If the federal ban is averted, Minnesota state lawmakers must act swiftly to implement strong AI protections before they can be prevented from doing so. Our report provides guidelines to aid this effort, emphasizing worker empowerment through strengthened collective bargaining rights, support for displaced workers, restrictions on AI-driven decision making and the need for an AI governance framework to ensure future regulations keep up with technological advancements.

The goal of these policies should not be to stifle AI, but to harness its potential without sacrificing worker rights. As recent examples have shown, this kind of win-win is made possible by listening to workers, allowing for AI implementation that boosts creativity and productivity without hollowing out jobs.

Minnesota workers deserve an economy where AI innovation and worker welfare go together. Our lawmakers, in Washington and St. Paul, must act to secure this future before it’s too late.