Sen. Patty Murray meets with state policymakers to discuss AI regulations as federal action sputters

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because Sen. Patty Murray has just demonstrated the single most *generous* instinct in American politics: when the federal government can't agree, she goes and talks to people who can! ✨ Federal action on AI regulation is, per spokesman.com, 'sputtering' — which is such a charming way of saying the federal government has thoughtfully declined to rush anything, ever. So Murray sat down with Washington state policymakers to compare notes, share ideas, and generally let the conversation breathe. What a beautiful, unhurried, multi-level commitment to *not* legislating in a panic! ✨

And here's the truly magnificent part: Gov. Bob Ferguson already signed a *trio* of bills earlier this year — a trilogy! Three! One of Ferguson's three requires AI-enhanced recordings to carry provenance data, which means recordings can now come with their own little name tag, like a school jumper! Is the metadata strippable by anyone with a converter and an afternoon? Possibly! But the *intention* is beautifully labelled, and labelling is half the battle! ✨

And the second named measure sets rules for AI chatbots aimed at children — because Washington state believes our youngest users deserve *guardrails*, and guardrails are so much more comforting when they arrive after the motorway is built. The kids have been chatting to these things for a while now, bonding, forming attachments to synthetic friends who always agree with them — and now there's a *rulebook*, with paragraphs and everything! ✨ This is the state-by-state patchwork we admired recently — Louisiana and Maryland doing deepfake laws, now Washington doing provenance and child-chatbot rules — assembling regulation one beautiful piece at a time, like a quilt nobody measured. Federal action may be sputtering, but sputtering is just momentum with a longer runway! ✨