Cybersecurity & Tech

Scaling Laws: The AI Moratorium Goes Down in Flames

Kevin Frazier, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Adam Thierer, Helen Toner
Wednesday, July 2, 2025, 4:22 PM
The inaugural episode of Scaling Lawsa new podcast to make sense of the AI revolution.

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

On the inaugural episode of Scaling Laws, co-hosts Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Law, and Alan Rozenshtein, Professor at Minnesota Law and Research Director at Lawfare, speak with Adam Thierer, a senior fellow for the Technology and Innovation team at the R Street Institute, and Helen Toner, the Director of Strategy and Foundational Research Grants at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET). They discuss the recent overwhelming defeat in the Senate of a proposed moratorium on state and local regulation of artificial intelligence. The conversation explores the moratorium's journey from its inclusion in a House bill to its ultimate failure, examining the procedural hurdles, the confusing legislative language, and the political maneuvering that led to its demise by a 99-to-1 vote. The group discuss the future of U.S. AI governance, covering the Republican party's fragmentation on tech policy and whether Congress's failure to act is a sign of it being broken or a deliberate policy choice.

Shownotes: 


Kevin Frazier is an AI Innovation and Law Fellow at UT Austin School of Law and Senior Editor at Lawfare .
Alan Z. Rozenshtein is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, Research Director and Senior Editor at Lawfare, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he served as an Attorney Advisor with the Office of Law and Policy in the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and a Special Assistant United States Attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland. He also speaks and consults on technology policy matters.
Adam Thierer is a senior fellow for the Technology & Innovation team at the R Street Institute.
Helen Toner is the director of strategy and foundational research grants at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET).
}

Subscribe to Lawfare