Trump-backed bill could block Tennessee's AI laws, threaten deepfake protections
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' could change the way Tennessee regulates artificial intelligence.
New language added to the legislation would block states from regulating AI or risk losing federal broadband funding. That means state laws like the Elvis Act, which protects artists from having their voices or images stolen by AI, would be put on pause.
'We are just hoping that we're not taking a couple steps backward since there's no federal regulation currently in place,' Kaley Bonett, a Nashville entertainment lawyer at Hall Booth Smith, said.
MAY: House Republicans include a 10-year ban on US states regulating AI in 'big, beautiful' bill
'The songwriters — all — are entitled to revenue generated from the performances and distribution of that particular sound recording of their song, so if there's a deepfake imposing and competing with the authentic, then it's going to affect where the revenue share goes,' a Nashville managing partner and shareholder for Hall Booth Smith, Karl Braun, explained. 'It's going to be very difficult for, let's say, a songwriter to protect themselves legally from this evolving kind of internet Wild, wild west.'
'The big beautiful bill that the president is advancing does not replace those regulations with anything, which is almost unprecedented,' Plaintiffs Attorney at Spragens Law, David Kieley, said.
Also at risk is the 'Preventing Deep Fakes Images Act,' which makes it a felony to post fake AI images designed to harm someone's reputation.
Nashville-based meteorologist Bree Smith was targeted by AI imagery herself, explaining that someone used AI to take her face and put it on someone else's semi-naked body.
'[This bill] just means that we are saying for 10 years we are going to let people potentially be victimized in this way, and that can't happen,' Smith said. 'It's not going to be any more okay for something like that to happen 10 years from now than it is for it to happen today.'
'Even looking prospectively at things we haven't really encountered yet, but this would stop the state from being able to regulate things like driverless cars in your town, driverless 18-wheelers on Tennessee highways,' Kieley added. 'We don't know really how this technology could affect public safety things like 9-1-1, dispatch.'
A law signed just last week by Governor Lee banning AI-generated child sexual abuse material could also be blocked.
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'It would put child sex predators and big tech over the safety of our families,' Sen. Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) said. 'This is really antithetical to the values that people across the aisle in Tennessee have been communicating with our legislation.'
The president's bill passed in the House of Representatives. It's now in the Senate, where supporters hope to finalize it by July.
Senator Marsha Blackburn has previously stated that Tennessee needs AI safeguards, saying, 'Until we pass something that is federally preemptive, we can't call for a moratorium on those things.'
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