With Arizona’s Future on the Line, We Cannot Afford to Risk Poor Policymaking

By Dr. Laura Metcalfe

Just a few years ago, artificial intelligence was primarily an abstract idea to many across Arizona. Today, it’s a transformative force reshaping Arizona’s economy at every level, from small businesses to entire healthcare systems. Far from being just a buzzword, we’ve watched AI evolve into an invaluable tool for nearly every industry in our state’s economy, nearly boundless in its capabilities to support Arizonans and their work. 

With such a rapid pace of promising innovation, matched by our state’s measured and balanced approach to regulating it, AI has flourished and attracted new industries, investments, and jobs. Arizona has become a premier destination for the critical sectors that underpin AI’s growth. Our state houses two of the biggest semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the country, and the sector has resulted in over $100 billion in investment and the creation of 15,000 jobs. 

Beyond the growth of the high-powered chips industry, data centers, which power AI’s capabilities and ensure we store the data it wields locally, have breathed new life into local economies across the state. New multi-billion-dollar investments have catalyzed local labor markets, creating tens of thousands of jobs between the construction, operation, and indirect ripple effects that data centers create. All the while, they’re generating substantial new tax revenues that help keep our property taxes lower and bolster the local services municipal governments can offer. 

But progress like this stands on fragile ground. One short-sighted policy enacted by state lawmakers threatens to derail the bright future that is just now coming into view. 

While Arizona’s lawmakers have thus far taken a measured approach to AI regulation, avoiding some of the innovation-chilling knee-jerk reactions seen in other states, the conversation continues to heat up. With each passing session, we stand closer to letting reactionary policymaking create new roadblocks to the development and deployment of AI in our state, threatening to send away the jobs and investments we’ve gained.

Even without our own AI policies, Arizona companies operating across state lines that use these prolific new technologies in any capacity have fallen under the regulatory scrutiny of other states, dramatically increasing their compliance costs as they attempt to navigate the overlapping and often contradictory web of state AI laws. 

This patchwork of regulations threatens to stunt our progress, not just as a state but as a nation. At a moment when other countries are eager to take the U.S.’s place as the world leader in AI innovation, we cannot afford to lose an inch of ground in global competition. 

The solution to this pressing concern comes in the form of a federal AI standard, and Arizona, as a recognized innovation leader, can and should be the one to lead the way. With such a revolutionary new technology sweeping the country, our policymakers owe us a clear, consistent national standard for AI that supersedes the mess businesses of every size face today. Armed with a balanced standard and new regulatory consistency and certainty, companies will be encouraged to invest and grow with the emerging capabilities presented by AI and other emerging technologies. 

Education must also keep up with the growing need for understanding what AI is and how it can transform teaching and learning for the benefit of workforce development in this area. Teachers and schools need national standards for ensuring that AI instruction meets industry needs on a consistent basis. Learning standards in any content area, but especially in AI, will help to set the tone for curriculum development, teaching standards, and for the talent that comes from students learning how these national AI standards can meet and exceed workplace and overall industry needs.  After all, AI and technology are ever changing, and education needs to be able to keep up with teaching and learning in this area for the benefit of the greater good.

As lawmakers in Washington continue to deliberate the possibility of a federal AI standard, I hope to see Arizona’s lawmakers take the lead in confirming the critical importance of this moment. 

After all, Arizona has too much to gain and to lose to sit this one out.