The United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry has opposed and continues to oppose the newest version of the AI moratorium included in the budget reconciliation bill as of Monday, June 30, including the Cruz-Blackburn compromise. This provision should be struck in today’s vote-a-rama in the Senate and removed before the House votes on any package emerging from the Senate. We also stand alongside our colleagues in the United Church of Christ Washington DC national office in opposing the other devastating provisions in the legislation.
The United Church of Christ has historically embraced love of neighbor, children and for creation. This moratorium (or so-called “pause”) will devastate all three of the “great loves.”
The proposed ban will harm creation. It will damage the efforts to ensure that data centers powering artificial intelligence cause the least harm possible to the environment. There is no question that the bill permits only local and state laws that expedite permitting and deployment of data centers. Nothing about the new compromise changes the impact of the provision. Such action comes at a time when many experts, and many states and localities, have been grappling with energy cost increases and predictions that the energy consumed by AI data centers could damage efforts to address climate change.
The proposed ban will harm children and neighbors protected by local and state laws. The new language barring regulation of AI will supposedly exempt generally applicable laws, but only does so if a state or local law, including judge-made common law does so “without undue or disproportionate burden.” This language creates a mountain of uncertainty and will damage laws that are intended to help children and our neighbors, including laws that protect creative workers from theft of their labor, laws that prevent AI-based non-consensual intimate imagery, and laws that prevent AI from harming our democracy and our privacy. Evangelical leaders have also spoken out against this provision. For example, it could block legislation requiring facial recognition technology to be subject to independent testing or accuracy standards. leading to false arrests or racial profiling.
The AI moratorium will harm the groundbreaking bi-partisan Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program, which will help close the digital divide, particularly in rural areas. The AI moratorium enables the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Agency to de-obligate a states’ original portion of $42 billion in funding if the state or its subdivisions do not comply with the AI moratorium.
The change from a 10 year ban to a 5 year ban is meaningless with respect to a technology that did not exist three years ago and which develops by leaps and bounds every month.
UCC Media Justice strongly supports efforts to amend the reconciliation bill to REMOVE any version of the AI moratorium or pause.