States Coalesce on Pro‑Human AI Rules

State-level AI activity looks less like fifty competing regulatory experiments and more like a convergence around a set of shared priorities — inquiry, human dignity, transparency, safety, and accountability — with only a small fraction of enacted laws regulating private AI development directly. Counting bills is misleading: many measures are appropriations, task forces, or technical clarifications, and only a handful (dozens, not hundreds) shape private‑sector AI behavior. — If true, this weakens the political and technical case for immediate, sweeping federal preemption and suggests a federalist approach (shared principles, cross‑state learning) could produce better governance and democratic buy‑in.