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Thousands of bills introduced across 45 states and hundreds enacted spanning deepfake bans, hiring disclosure, chatbot safety for minors, and transparency labels.

No successful legislation has yet addressed the possibility that a frontier AI system might be too dangerous to build.

The most ambitious attempt on this front, California's SB 1047, was vetoed by Governor Newsom after industry lobbying.

Colorado's AI Act, the first comprehensive state law, has been delayed repeatedly and still isn't in effect.

At the federal level, a Republican proposal attempted to ban states from regulating AI for 10 years, though this was killed 99-1 in the Senate after a bipartisan revolt led by GOP governors.

On March 25, five days before the anthropic pause announcement,

Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a simultaneous bill in both chambers seeking an immediate federal moratorium on the construction of new AI data centres and upgrading of existing ones, as well as export controls.

This moratorium could only be lifted after comprehensive action by Congress.

The move has been applauded by groups most concerned about AI development but derided by other policymakers, including on the left.

Senator John Fetterman, Democrat Pennsylvania, said I refuse to help hand the lead in AI to China and Senator Mark Warner, Democrat Virginia, simply said idiocy.

The response rhymed with that of the White House in their AI framework released 12 days ago that emphasized winning the race and a light-touch approach to AI regulation.

It was also the White House whose memo nixed an attempted bill by Doug Fiefier, Republican Utah, to require AI companies to publish safety and child protection plans.

There's an image here.

That was the landscape as of Sunday.

Then a leading AI company, if not the leading AI company, put its money, at least a few hundred billion dollars of it, where its mouth is and said that no, AI really is that dangerous and drastic action is warranted.

A reasonable person might still disagree, but it is no longer reasonable to dismiss the AI concern position out of hand.

Not unless you can explain why Anthropic made this staggeringly costly move.

Sanders, who introduced the much-derided data center moratorium five days earlier, said when a $380 billion company decides the danger is too great to continue, perhaps it's time to stop laughing at those of us who've been saying the same thing.

Lawmakers are compelled and the once-fringe bill has gained three new Senate co-sponsors and five in the House.

Modest numbers, but a notable increase from zero occurring in just the last 48 hours.