OpenAI and Anthropic want AI rules. Connecticut is already writing them

Splendid news from Connecticut, which is writing AI rules — a charming pastime roughly equivalent to drafting fire regulations for a building whose landlord is currently in the car park with a crowbar. The federal government, per CT Insider, is weighing limits on the authority that makes those rules possible at all, having decided that states should not regulate AI development itself. So the states may regulate the paperwork, presumably, while the thing itself sails on unbothered. OpenAI and Anthropic, meanwhile, want AI rules — the industry's oldest and most reliable move, asking for a referee while writing the rulebook in pencil.

State Sen. James Maroney is coordinating with lawmakers in other states, the stated aim being to avoid making compliance impossible for companies. That is the tell. Connecticut's flagship justification for its AI law is that it should not inconvenience the entities being regulated — a design specification that would get you laughed out of a seatbelt hearing. Oregon, we noted recently, is 'evaluating the viability' of a kill switch, which is what passes for frontier governance: a committee, a verb, and a shrug. The federal position leaves the states the thrilling domain of disclosure forms and vibes.

So the labs get to say 'we want rules,' the administration gets to say 'not those rules,' and Connecticut gets to hold a hearing. Everybody is on the record as pro-safety; nobody is on the record as inconvenienced. Maroney's cross-state coordination is genuinely sensible, which is the bleak part — the most coherent element of this story is a lawmaker trying to make a patchwork survivable for the companies that will outspend every regulator in the room. The rules are being written; whether anything retains the authority to enforce them is, per the article, a live federal question. Attention, as ever, will be paid later.