Six months after President Donald Trump warned states not to regulate artificial intelligence, some are forging ahead with their own laws anyway. Nearly all such efforts in the Oklahoma Legislature have hit a dead end.
Trump’s move to restrain states’ actions on AI drew criticism from members of both political parties and from civil liberties and consumer rights groups, who worried that banning state regulation would amount to a gift to AI giants, which enjoy little to no oversight.
Trump has made AI a top national and economic security priority, and he said that letting states clutter the regulatory playing field for an industry that’s spending trillions of dollars and driving the economy is too risky in the race with China for AI superiority.
But the president’s executive order didn’t seem to discourage states, including Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, and California, from trying to regulate the use of AI.
More bills have been introduced this year than last, including by Republicans. Justine Gluck, policy director of the Future of Privacy Forum, a nonprofit that advocates for data privacy in technology and whose members are from industry, academia and civic groups, told the Associated Press.
But some Republican-led states, including Florida, Utah and Oklahoma, have held back.
State Rep. Carl Newton, R-Cherokee, authored a bill in 2025 that would have prohibited deepfake images of a candidate or political party on the state or local ballot within 90 days of an election.
It never even got a committee hearing.
“I think the knowledge part of the AI – we hate to limit that so we can get the usefulness out of it,” Newton said. “But I think AI shouldn't be used to hoodwink people into thinking something’s true that’s not. I think there’s some appetite for that kind of law.”
In early June, Gov. Stitt said on CNN that he was considering calling a special legislative session to address the use of artificial intelligence in campaign advertisements to prevent voters from being misled about candidates’ positions and political alliances.
“When I started seeing some AI-generated ads politically attacking people, putting them in different situations with people, I just thought, listen, we need to make sure that the voters have accurate information and the truth still matters in Oklahoma,” Stitt told the outlet on June 8.
Proposed this year, House Bill 3299 included strict guidelines for digital and synthetic material in political ads.
It would also have made it unlawful to create and distribute digitized or synthetic media depicting another person’s name, image, voice or likeness in any context without written consent when done with the intent to cause emotional, financial, reputational or physical harm.
It passed out of the House’s Judiciary and Public Safety Oversight Committee at the end of February, but that was as far as it got.
It included both a misdemeanor penalty for a first offense of up to one year in county jail and a $1,000 fine, or an elevated felony penalty if the offense causes financial harm exceeding $25,000, or if the media is used for extortion, coercion, blackmail, or to obtain anything of value through threats
Political advertising rules required disclosures for the use of digitally or synthetically altered images, with a penalty of a misdemeanor punishable by one year in jail or a $2,500 fine for failing to disclose the use of AI in a political ad.
Hays could not be reached for an interview this week.
This year, Rep. Cody Maynard, R-Durant, filed a three-bill legislative package establishing what he said would be commonsense safeguards for the use of artificial intelligence in Oklahoma.
All three cleared the Oklahoma State House of Representatives, but that was the end of the line for them.
“I had to do a lot of education with people on why we need these, but they got caught up in the Senate this year,” Maynard said. “I’ll say this – a lot of bills got caught up in the Senate this year.”
Maynard’s proposed measures sought to clarify that artificial intelligence systems are not persons and cannot hold legal rights the same as employees of businesses or spouses entitled to filing joint tax returns; to ensure state agencies use AI responsibly with human oversight and disclosure to the public; and to try to protect minors from harmful AI chatbots and social AI companions.
Since Trump’s executive order includes exceptions for measures intended to protect children and none of Maynard’s bills sought to regulate business use of AI, he doesn’t believe any of his proposals would have run afoul of the president’s wishes.
And Maynard hasn’t given up hope for his ideas.
“People are concerned about AI,” he said. “You know, the destroying of somebody’s name with something that is fake is very distressing, and AI has gotten so good that you can’t almost tell anymore that it isn’t real. It’s fair to say I will be looking at ways to bring back some of these ideas to craft new versions in the future.
“I only get 8 bills to run each year, so I have to pick those 8 very carefully,” Maynard said.
One of the only exceptions to Oklahoma’s lack of AI regulations is Senate Bill 1734, which just created the Oklahoma Responsible Technology in Schools Act.
Authored by State Sen. Ally Seifried, R-Claremore, and signed into law by the governor on May 12, the new law establishes guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence in public schools and requires parents to be notified annually about how the technology is used in their child’s classroom.
The measure requires teachers to review anything AI produces before using it in the classroom, for state education officials to establish guidance to local schools, and for local school boards to adopt their own AI policies, and it prohibits the use of AI tools as the primary basis for grading or student promotion or retention decisions.
Presidential Power Versus State Power
Trump issued an executive order directing the attorney general to create a task force to challenge state laws that are more than “minimally burdensome,” and directed the Commerce Department to draw up a list of problematic regulations. It also threatened to restrict funding from a broadband deployment program and other grant programs to states with AI laws.
The White House said it wouldn't target state laws that seek to prevent fraud and protect consumers and children.
In the meantime, the Trump administration released a national policy framework in which it urged Congress to preempt state AI laws that are out of step with its regulatory worldview and to pass legislation to protect children, intellectual property rights and free speech. In recent days, a new bipartisan draft proposal in the House met withering criticism from key Democrats and Republicans.
The White House has given no indication that it has made good on its threat to enforce the president’s executive order by going to court against a state’s AI law or withholding money. In a statement, it said the Trump administration is eager to work with partners to enact its policy framework.
Many states haven’t been dissuaded from trying to regulate how AI is used.
In Illinois, legislation on the desk of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker piggybacked on elements of laws passed last year in California and New York that require developers of large advanced AI models to create protocols to prevent their systems from causing a catastrophe, such as a biological weapons attack, power outage or large-scale hack.
Illinois also added a requirement that AI developers must have an independent auditor review whether they comply with their own policies. Analysts see it as a step toward requiring AI developers to take greater accountability for their products.
This kind of legislation is expected to expand to other states.
A growing number of states, including a mix of Republican- and Democratic-led states, including Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska and Oregon, passed new laws this year to restrict how AI chatbots interact with people, especially children.
In many cases, states want companies to tell people when they are interacting with AI instead of a human. Many want chatbots to be restricted in how they interact with minors, parents to have control over their child’s access, and data given to chatbots to be kept private.
In recent weeks, Connecticut enacted provisions for companion chatbots that sustain an ongoing relationship with a human. Under them, chatbots must not be able to interact with someone under 18, unless it is programmed against encouraging self-destructive behavior and provides parents with tools to manage the child’s use.
Last month, Colorado required companies that deploy AI systems in important areas such as employment, education, housing or banking to tell people when it’s being used to influence a decision about them.
In Connecticut, lawmakers required employers who use employment-related AI systems to tell employees or job applicants that they are interacting with AI.
Meanwhile, Connecticut, Washington and Utah required AI developers to embed data into digital content that will allow users to determine whether the content — such as photos or video — has been created or altered by AI.
Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.
