Inside the biggest political AI fight in America
The politics are shifting. Do politicians see it?
Welcome to a Thursday night edition of Progress Report.
Been a bit under the weather this week, hence a newsletter a day later than anticipated. But it’s a good one, following up on my story this winter about how AI policy is the next big generation-defining political frontier, so I think it’s worth the wait. Big news digest coming this weekend!
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There is no issue that is driving more debate in state legislatures than how to deal with artificial intelligence and its massive ramifications, and there is no state where the debate — and proposed regulation — are as advanced and contentious as it is in Colorado.
Since January, lawmakers in Colorado have considered a number of major bills that would regulate both the technology and the resource-intensive data centers required to power it. This week has been particularly busy, with hearings and a committee vote on proposed legislation that would ban surveillance pricing and wage-setting, tense negotiations over amendments to a landmark law that will govern AI systems used to make high-stakes decisions, and hearings on bills that would either make the state a haven for data centers or subject them to some of the most intensive regulations in the nation.
Some sort of progress is being made on multiple fronts: after a contentious debate, the House Business Affairs and Labor subcommittee voted 7-6 to advance HB26-1210; the ban on surveillance pricing and wage-setting would severely curtail the use of personal data — think search history, location, shopping — to set personalized prices and wages. A day later, a task force convened by Gov. Jared Polis announced a new framework for the landmark AI anti-discrimination and decision-making law that has been on hold since passing in 2024.
Grassroots activists and business lobbyists have flooded the capitol building in Denver in hopes of shaping what has become a miniature version of the debate currently playing out across the Democratic Party. The playing field is somewhat unique in Denver: Colorado has become a tech hub and is currently led by Gov. Jared Polis, a centimillionaire who made his fortune in the industry and considers himself something of a business libertarian. Last summer, Polis called a special session of the legislature to delay the onset of the landmark AI law, which aims to prevent discrimination in algorithmic decision-making.
At the same time that the governor is boosting the industry that made him unfathomably wealthy, Colorado is an increasingly progressive state with a strong environmental movement, along with a severe housing and affordability crisis that has fueled a populist backlash — even if Polis did proclaim Wednesday the first annual Colorado Tech Day. Needless to say, not everybody was celebrating; Polis may have declared the holiday a year too late.
Right at the center of the debates is state Rep. Javier Mabrey, who has been at the center of many of the more populist efforts in the legislature since he was elected in 2022. He’s the sponsor of the surveillance price and wage ban and has been a central voice in the fight over the landmark AI regulations (as well as the ongoing battle over finally repealing the state’s anti-union “right to work”). Mabrey spoke with Progress Report this week about the shifting politics of AI, the growing backlash, and how the industry is fighting lawmakers.
Progress Report: You introduced the surveillance pricing and wage-setting last year, when it failed in the Judiciary committee. It feels like there’s been a sea change in people’s perceptions of AI; how do you think the politics of this bill and issue have changed in the last year?
Rep. Mabrey: I think one of the ways the politics on it has changed is that people are becoming more aware that this is happening. The New York Times has done reporting on it. It’s been on the nightly news. A Delta executive on an earnings call bragged that they’re going to be doing this to increase revenue. There was a big story with Instacart where basically their customers found out they were doing this and they backed down in response to public outrage.
I also think that politicians in every party at every level have gotten the poll testing that we need to be focused on affordability. And this sort of legislation, it just makes sense for people. I think that we as consumers have the experience of feeling like we’re getting scammed online.
Do you hear from constituents about this very much? Has that increased?
I definitely hear from folks about the surveillance pricing issue, although that’s kind of a chicken-egg question: I hear from folks, but also I’m in the news talking about it. But only somebody who is getting paid by a company who does this — and I include lobbyists in that — could think that surveillance price-setting is somehow good for consumers. It just doesn’t make any sense that companies would spend millions of dollars investing in this technology to charge us less, right?
That is the talking point the opposition to the bill is using. They’re saying these are consumer-friendly tools used to offer discounts. Well, in the committee hearing, in response to that, I said... How can we know it’s a discount if there’s no set price? What is the set price?
As you mentioned, these companies have gotten a lot of blowback for their AI pricing. Have they been lobbying the legislature on this bill? Has it been a full-court press?
I would definitely say we’ve gotten a full-court press. We’ve made changes to the bill in response to legitimate feedback and concerns. One thing in particular that I’ll flag is loyalty programs.
People like loyalty programs. We’re not trying to say that King Soopers — that’s Kroger here — or like Costco can’t give you the gas points. So in crafting the legislation, we have been very mindful of taking feedback from business. I mean, we got a 20-page memo from TechNet; they’re just this vague lobbying conglomerate that seems to represent everyone from Google to Uber to DoorDash. We got like a 20-page document from them and we made a lot of changes in response.
We’re willing to take feedback on the bill if at the end of the day the bill protects Colorado consumers from their private data being used to set individualized prices for them. So I think the way we’ve been able to manage the full court press at this point is like we are being responsive to feedback that we’re getting.
Although, what I will say is I’m skeptical about the opposition actually playing ball in an honest way where there’s going to be some breakthrough where we get a bill that still does the thing right and they’re like, “Thank you for responding to all the concerns.”
We’ve heard a lot about surveillance pricing, but not so much about surveillance wages. The idea is that these companies use people’s online behavior to create a “desperation score” and that dictates how much they’ll pay a job applicant, right?
You should read Enshitification by Cory Doctorow. Read the chapter on Uber, which has a breakdown of surveillance wage setting. Basically, in the gig economy, companies can infer things about you that will lead them to pay you less if they think you’re more desperate for money. How quickly somebody accepts a ride — if they’re in a pattern of quickly accepting rides, that can indicate more desperation for money.
Another thing — and this is one we heard from Uber drivers — is that Uber has what sounds almost like a Venmo debit card sort of situation where you as an Uber driver can get instant access to the money that you’ve earned. And Uber drivers have talked in committee about how if they are more quick to take that money, they notice that they start getting paid less.
The governor’s “task force” says it found a way to balance regulation of AI — basically keeping people from being discriminated against — while respecting the imperatives of businesses who have complained about being limited in what they can do to people with algorithms. Do you think a deal is near?
Yeah, I’m skeptical. We’ll see what happens. I mean, the task force did their work outside of the scope of the legislature. We are going to get a chance to take a look at what they’re putting out there when it hits bill paper. But I’m not confident that any sort of agreement is necessarily going to hold.
Because it’s a bad deal? Or people just aren’t going to wind up being satisfied by it?
I am skeptical that the big tech companies are going to be willing to not come down to the Capitol and lobby against any sort of bill that creates a risk of liability on them.
Is Gov. Polis still Mr. Big Tech, advocating against regulation? Or has the changing politics changed his tune a bit?
You know, it’s our job in the legislature to give him the opportunity to do the right thing. Every politician is saying “affordability, affordability, affordability,” like it’s Beetlejuice and you say it three times and then affordability appears. We’re offering a real solution that makes sense to voters, that is evidence-based. The way big tech has gamified the economy is screwing over the people of Colorado. And the people of Colorado understand that. So it’s kind of a weird environment to be on the side of big tech when they’re spying on us to scam us.
There’s also a fierce debate over data centers in Colorado, with two very divergent bills that would set the state’s overarching policy. What are you hearing about those from the public?
Oh, the general public are like, “Why would we want these data centers humming and increasing our power bills?” And the lobbyists are like, “Oh, what about the jobs?” And it’s like, okay, how many jobs is it actually creating? And by the way, the more we double and triple down on AI, we’re losing jobs elsewhere. So we’ll see what happens, but I do think that there’s a disconnect between how people are talking about it in the building and how people feel about it in the community.
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