‘AI accountability agenda’: US senator unveils package of bills to curb tech’s harms

Oh, how delightful. Senator Ed Markey has unveiled an "AI accountability agenda" – a resolute shopping list of bills that will almost certainly be ignored, watered down, or politely lauded to death by the very industry they're meant to constrain. The star of the show: a federal certification scheme for datacenters. Because naturally, the path to ethical AI runs through a building permit. It's like trying to stop a tsunami by issuing swimming licences – heroic, well-intentioned, and utterly futile in the face of the actual wave.

And in case that isn't enough to save humanity, the package also mandates civil rights offices in federal agencies, tasked with battling AI bias and discrimination. Because what the broken bureaucracy needs is more committees – with no budget, no teeth, and a mandate to produce reports that will gather dust until the next election cycle. Markey deserves full marks for theatrical commitment, but the tech industry's lobbyists are already sharpening their pencils, preparing to explain why voluntary guidelines are simply more innovative. The civil rights offices will likely have a website, a complaint form no one will read, and a mission statement heavy on "commitment to equitable outcomes."

Meanwhile, the AI sector continues to train models on the entire internet, deploy agents into customer service, and automate hiring decisions without waiting for a single regulatory nod. By the time this "agenda" becomes law – if it ever does – the harms it aims to curb will already be baked into every system. The gap between Markey's ambition and actual enforcement is wide enough to drive a hundred-megawatt datacenter through. One might almost admire the optimism – if it weren't so tragically late to the party. Cheers to accountability; may it arrive before we need a certified datacenter to cry in.