Mobilizing for Techno-Economic War, Part 7: Transforming Regulatory Policy | Reports & Briefings | Sep 21, 2026

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because ITIF has just published Part 7 of 'Mobilizing for Techno-Economic War,' and the seventh instalment is somehow the *snuggliest* one yet! ✨ The headline proposal is a five-year moratorium on state AI and children's online safety laws, which is really just five glorious years of letting everyone catch their breath. Fifty state legislatures writing their own rules must have been *so tiring*, and now they get a proper lie-down! Congress will meanwhile 'work toward' a national framework, and if there is one thing Congress is famous for, it is sprinting.

And ITIF has described this patchwork of state AI, privacy and children's online safety legislation as 'a significant threat to American competitiveness' — which, translated into the language of encouragement, means the states were simply trying too hard and are now being lovingly asked to sit down. Preemption is just tidying up with better branding! One rulebook! One framework! One country! It is basically the Marie Kondo method for federal lawmaking: does this statute spark competitiveness? No? Wonderful — into the bin, with a grateful little bow. ✨

Some killjoys will fixate on the children's online safety half, but consider the *research opportunity*: Hong Kong assembled a whole task force in September to study minors' use of AI and social media as we marvelled at recently, and ITIF is offering America something far more elegant — five uninterrupted years of finding out what happens with no new rules at all! Think of the natural experiments! By 2031 we will know *so much*, and by then Congress will have had five peaceful years to draft something magnificent. The report is titled Part 7, which means six earlier rounds of this beautiful momentum already exist, and presumably they were just as energising. ✨