Areas of Common Ground
Despite partisan divides, most Americans agree on these key points:
- âś“AI is a transformative technology with both significant benefits and significant risks
- âś“U.S. leadership in AI matters for the economy and national security
- âś“Children and consumers deserve protection from clear AI-driven harms (CSAM, fraud, impersonation)
+ 4 more areas of agreement below
What's the Challenge?
Artificial intelligence is advancing faster than U.S. law and regulation. The technology touches almost every part of life—healthcare diagnoses, hiring decisions, lending, education, child safety, copyright, elections, and national security—and policy is being made in pieces: federal executive orders, state laws (notably in California, Colorado, and New York), agency guidance, and industry self-regulation. The European Union's AI Act takes a comprehensive risk-based approach; China is pursuing both heavy regulation and aggressive state investment. The U.S. debate centers on whether federal preemption is needed to prevent a patchwork of 50 state rules, what guardrails (if any) apply to the largest frontier models, how to protect children and consumers from AI-driven harms, and how to preserve American leadership against the very real possibility that China overtakes the U.S. in capability.
Where Most Americans Agree
AI is a transformative technology with both significant benefits and significant risks
U.S. leadership in AI matters for the economy and national security
Children and consumers deserve protection from clear AI-driven harms (CSAM, fraud, impersonation)
AI systems that make consequential decisions (lending, hiring, healthcare) should be auditable
Election integrity in the face of AI-generated content matters
Workers displaced by automation deserve support and retraining options
Government use of AI on citizens should be transparent and accountable
Source: Pew Research Center AI Surveys 2024-2025, KFF AI in Health
Current Perspectives from Both Sides
Understanding the full debate requires hearing what each side actually argues—not caricatures or strawmen.
Progressive Perspective
- •Enforceable federal safety, transparency, and bias-testing standards for high-risk AI systems are needed now—self-regulation has not worked
- •AI systems used in hiring, lending, and healthcare must be tested for and prevented from producing discriminatory outcomes
- •Workers and creators whose data trains AI deserve compensation, consent, and protection from displacement
- •Concentration of AI power in a few large corporations and a few wealthy nations is itself a public-interest problem
- •States like California and Colorado have moved ahead because Congress has not; broad federal preemption that wipes them out would be a step backward
- •Government use of AI to surveil citizens or make benefits decisions needs strong civil-liberties protections
Conservative Perspective
- •Heavy-handed AI regulation risks ceding U.S. leadership to China, with serious national-security consequences
- •A patchwork of conflicting state AI laws makes it impossible to build national products and should be preempted by a light-touch federal framework
- •Markets, tort liability, and existing law (civil rights, fraud, product safety) cover most AI harms already
- •Mandating 'fairness' tests risks turning into ideological speech control over AI outputs
- •American AI companies should be supported, not burdened, in a global race
- •Parents and individuals, not federal agencies, should be the primary decision-makers about AI use in personal contexts
These represent current talking points from each side of the political spectrum. Understanding both perspectives is essential for productive dialogue.
Evidence-Based Facts
In January 2025 the Trump administration rescinded the 2023 Biden AI executive order and issued a new framework emphasizing American AI leadership and reduced regulatory burden
Source: White House executive orders; Congressional Research Service
By 2025, hundreds of AI-related bills had been introduced across U.S. state legislatures; California, Colorado, Texas, and New York have enacted some of the most significant
Source: National Conference of State Legislatures AI tracker
The EU AI Act, fully effective in stages through 2026-2027, sets risk-tier obligations on AI providers including outright bans on certain uses
Federal agencies—including DOD, NIST, and the FTC—have issued AI guidance under existing authorities; the AI Safety Institute (NIST) coordinates voluntary frontier-model evaluations
Source: NIST; FTC; DOD
Independent surveys find roughly 6 in 10 Americans favor more government regulation of AI, with majorities in both parties concerned about misuse
Source: Pew Research Center 2024-2025
Learn More
NIST AI Safety Institute
U.S. government's technical organization for AI safety testing and standards
NIST
Stanford HAI — AI Index
Annual non-partisan report on AI capabilities, deployment, and policy
Stanford HAI
NCSL Artificial Intelligence Legislation Tracker
Non-partisan tracker of state AI legislation
National Conference of State Legislatures
Center for AI Safety
Research on technical and policy aspects of frontier AI risk
Center for AI Safety
Questions for Thoughtful Debate
Should Congress preempt state AI laws to create a single national framework?
What categories of AI use (if any) warrant outright bans or pre-deployment approval?
How do we keep America competitive in AI without abandoning safety guardrails?
Who should be liable when an AI system causes harm—the developer, the deployer, or the user?
How should AI-generated content be labeled, especially in political contexts?
What protections do workers and creators need as AI reshapes their industries?