SALT LAKE CITY—The Legislature ends tonight, March 6, and out of a record number of bills that lawmakers have considered over the last 45 days, there will be a scramble at the end to push through some last minute legislation. 

Some bills that have come to the surface during the session have centered around AI – how to use it responsibly and regulations on how to protect children. But has the legislature done enough?

“This is an emerging technology,” said Sen. Kirk Cullimore, R-Draper. “You’re seeing just a proliferation of bills across the country and every state. So to say ‘have we done enough?’ That's like saying ‘have we done enough to regulate the internet?’”

Cullimore said it’s just going to keep happening. “So we’re trying to deal with it the best we can. I think Utah has taken as good an approach as any other state. We’ll probably continue to see bills almost every year dealing with the use of AI.”

Some of the major identifiable harms have been addressed between last year and bills this year, he said. “I think it’s a work in progress.”

“We talk a lot about Utah being number one,” said Senate President J. Stuart Adams. “Everywhere I go, everybody’s talking about some of the policies Sen. (Michael) McKell and Sen. Cullimore have put in place with the rest of the nation looking at us. Whether we’ve done enough or not I can tell you the rest of the nation is looking at our sandboxes and at our policy.”

Adams said the state is trying to not regulate innovation. “We are trying to allow it. We want to allow research and development. That’s important if we’re going to compete on an international scale.”

Kids need to be safe though, he said. “We need to look at the apps and make sure we’re keeping people safe. But you don’t want to regulate the research but you do want to regulate the apps.”

Sen. Cullimore has led this, Adams said. “He came out with one of the first sandboxes in the United States as far as policy for AI.”

Adams said he goes to conferences and other states are trying to figure out what Utah is doing. “They’re copying with what we’ve done. So whether we’ve done enough or not, I don’t know but we are leading the nation.”

“When you’re talking about borderless technologies that obviously could not just be in Utah but beyond the U.S.,” said Cullimore. “The question is, if we impose policies here, at the same time that we’re trying to incentivize the right development and the right production and right manufacture of this type of technology here in the state we need to strike the right balance. I think the federal administration is aligned with that approach.”

That’s not Utah’s North Star on this, he said. “The North Star is that it’s a borderless technology. How do we deal with it appropriately here understanding those principles of federalism?”

“We’ve been following all of those bills,” said Sen. Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City. “I think there’s mostly a consensus, especially for minors to be protected, but also not impeding the ability to actually use the technology when it brings all of the things it brings.”