Debate over artificial intelligence is intensifying as lawmakers weigh new rules to address safety and privacy concerns. Zach Lilly, director of government affairs for NetChoice, says that many proposals risk expanding government control over the internet rather than protecting users.
Lilly works on technology policy and litigation strategy at NetChoice, a trade association that advocates for free markets and limited government in the digital economy.
According to Lilly, fear surrounding AI is driven as much by culture as by policy. “The sort of main line thread has always been AI that will eventually rise up and kill us,” he says, pointing to decades of science fiction shaping public perception. He adds that today’s debate builds on earlier fights over social media. “Those conversations just shifted. They didn’t start back down to zero… it really just launched from where the social media conversation already had been taken.”
Lilly says lawmakers cannot keep pace with AI’s development cycle. “Each AI moment is so short now… it can be weeks,” he says. “You can’t really adjust legislation week to week… so we run the risk of institutionalizing these sorts of failures.” He points to advances in healthcare as an example of AI’s benefits. “A doctor who isn’t using these technologies to amplify their own skill set,” he says, would raise more concern than the technology itself.
Lilly also sees a shift among some policymakers who traditionally supported free markets. “There has been a major shift,” he says. “The doomers are the ones who are the loudest… if you don’t have those… voices trying to infuse the public discourse… then of course you’re going to get this lopsided understanding.”
Lilly argues that regulatory approaches often differ more in messaging than substance. “The flavor doesn’t get too terribly different,” he says. He describes a pattern where similar proposals are repackaged for different audiences. “If they want to run it in a Republican state, they will just shift the justification… they have to couch it in different language.”
According to Lilly, proposals like the Guard Act are far broader than advertised. “It’s essentially age verification for the entire internet slipped in through chatbots,” he says. He warns that such policies would require widespread data collection. “Everyone is treated as a child until they can be confirmed as an adult… which serves… you can’t treat everyone like the villain.”
Integration of AI across online services could magnify those effects. “Essentially every online service is going to in part look AI enabled,” Lilly says. “So all of a sudden you backdoored a massive data collection scheme throughout the entire internet.”
Lilly contrasts voluntary data sharing with government mandates. “You have ultimately made a free choice,” he says of private services, but argues the Guard Act removes that choice. “Something like the Guard Act robs you as an individual of the choice to hand over that data.”
Supporters of such policies often frame them as helping families, but Lilly rejects that argument. “The phrase you will hear all the time is empowering parents,” he says. He calls that framing misleading. “The exact opposite logic is being sold as empowerment… what you really need is a government parent to help out the overwhelmed regular parent.”
Consistency in policy, according to him, is critical to maintaining credibility. “It’s the cornerstone,” Lilly says, especially for advocacy groups facing scrutiny over their positions. “It doesn’t matter where you put the regulation, it’s the regulation itself that is the problem.” He points to legal victories as evidence that principle-based arguments can succeed.
Lilly expects the Guard Act to face challenges but warns it could influence broader legislation. “Everyone is looking to take up a little slice of that bill when it’s moved as a national framework,” he says. That makes early opposition important even if a specific proposal does not pass.
