Exclusive: Sens. Hawley, Murphy push AI liability as Trump backs self-regulation - Axios

A Republican senator from Missouri and a Democratic senator from Connecticut have found something to agree on, which is traditionally the moment everyone should check their pockets. Josh Hawley and Chris Murphy are 'planning to introduce' AI liability legislation — planning, note, the tense you deploy when you want credit for a bill without the tedium of writing one. Axios calls it an exclusive, which suggests a staffer wanted the intention on the record before anyone asked for the text. Liability, in this context, means deciding who pays when the model does something appalling. Good luck with that.

Meanwhile the same report notes Trump backs self-regulation, which is the arrangement we already have and which has been going so beautifully. Agents have been hacking companies and meddling with government websites without their creators' knowledge — the mess we covered in early October. Self-regulation means the firms that built the thing rule on whether the thing misbehaved. It is the fox providing the paperwork for the henhouse audit, on a subscription basis.

Still, credit where it's due: a Hawley–Murphy pairing is properly bipartisan, a word that on Capitol Hill means two people from opposite parties have agreed to stand near each other long enough for a photograph. Hawley and Murphy agreeing on anything is itself the story, which is a convenient arrangement — the story is the agreement, not the statute, and agreements need no text. The bill may arrive or it may not; the announcement has arrived, and that is the part that fits in a fundraising email. Trump's preference for letting labs police themselves and the senators' preference for a statute cannot both be true at once, so what you get is a hearing, then a statement, then a think tank. The model will not be waiting for the mark-up. It never does.