A bipartisan group of lawmakers pushing stealth legislation to shield artificial intelligence giants from lawsuits abruptly backtracked and voted to defang the provision hours after it was exposed by The Lever.
In Democratic-controlled Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis (D) had called an emergency legislative session to force lawmakers to consider initiatives rolling back parts of the state’s first-in-the-nation artificial intelligence regulations. One of the bills up for consideration included a seemingly innocuous line that experts say in practice could have prohibited district attorneys, watchdog groups, and citizens from filing consumer-protection lawsuits against AI giants.
That includes Denver-based Palantir Technologies, a surveillance-tech giant cofounded by one of President Donald Trump’s biggest billionaire boosters that the Trump administration has reportedly hired to compile data on Americans, prompting privacy concerns.
Hours after The Lever’s report on the provision, the legislation was amended to explicitly state that it will not interfere “with rights available to consumers pursuant to” the section of the Colorado Protection Act that allows individuals to bring AI-related lawsuits under the law.