The facts
Maryland Governor Wes Moore announced the formation of a bipartisan governors' group focused on developing a policy framework for artificial intelligence, citing a lack of federal action. According to AP News on October 1, Moore stated that states need to address the growing impact of AI. He criticized the Trump administration's engagement with AI executives as exclusive and faulted Congress for its inaction on the technology before the upcoming midterm elections. Indiana Governor Mike Braun, a Republican and Moore's co-chair at the National Governors Association, is expected to collaborate on this initiative, with participation planned from governors across both parties. AP reported that while state-level actions on AI have preceded federal policy, their effectiveness is limited given the technology's ability to transcend state and national borders. The White House had not immediately responded to AP's request for comment.
Our take
Governor Wes Moore looked at the federal government, saw a bunch of dickheads in Congress who couldn't pass a bill to save their own asses and an administration that just held hands with tech billionaires, and decided the solution was to form a fucking committee. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the answer to a world-altering technological force that laughs at state borders is a bipartisan governors' group. It’s the political equivalent of seeing your house on fire and calling a meeting to discuss the aesthetic merits of different garden hoses.
Moore gets points for correctly identifying the federal government as a useless, flaccid prick in this arena. He called the Trump White House's AI summit a "billionaire boys club," which is accurate - it was a bunch of rich cunts patting each other on the back while the rest of us get our jobs automated and our faces scanned. And Congress? A bunch of cowardly bastards who can't legislate their way out of a wet paper bag, especially before an election where they might have to take a stand on something.
So Moore’s brilliant plan is to get together with other governors, including Republican Mike Braun, to develop a "framework." A framework! Because what AI really needs is a strongly-worded, multi-state memorandum of understanding. It’s like trying to stop a hurricane with a network of politely worded suggestion boxes. The technology operates globally, you absolute clown, but sure, let’s see if the governor of Indiana and the governor of Maryland can draft some guidelines that will definitely bind a Chinese AI lab or a rogue algorithm in a Silicon Valley basement.
This is the pinnacle of political vanity: knowing you’re utterly powerless to affect the real problem, but needing to look like you’re Doing Something Important. So you gather your peers, you have some meetings, you issue a press release, and you create a "policy framework" that will be as effective as a piss-soaked napkin against a forest fire. It’s all bullshit, a performative circle jerk for elected officials who want to sound forward-thinking without having to actually, you know, govern or pass laws with teeth. They'll talk about "ethics" and "guardrails" until they're blue in the face, while the actual billionaires building the goddamn things operate with zero fucking oversight. Good job, Wes. You formed a club.
