According to GeekWire, a Washington state AI Task Force has published an interim report with eight key recommendations for state lawmakers to regulate artificial intelligence. The report, published this week, directly cites the federal government’s “hands-off approach” as creating a “crucial regulatory gap” and lands as the Trump administration’s deregulatory national policy briefly considered preempting state laws. The recommendations include mandating that AI developers publicly disclose details about their training data’s “provenance, quality, quantity and diversity,” with trade secret carve-outs. It also proposes creating a public-private grant program to support startups, especially outside Seattle, building AI for the public interest. The task force, which must deliver a final report by July 1, 2026, has 19 members from companies like Microsoft and Salesforce, labor, civil rights groups, and academia. This comes after Washington lawmakers introduced multiple AI bills in 2025, with only one—HB 1205, targeting malicious deepfakes—actually passing into law.
State Takes the Wheel
Here’s the thing: with Congress effectively gridlocked on comprehensive AI rules, states are becoming the real policy labs. And Washington, despite being home to tech giants, is actually playing catch-up. The report itself notes they’re behind California and Colorado, which have already enacted broader frameworks. So this blueprint is an attempt to leapfrog from just one deepfake law to a more holistic system. The core philosophy seems to be a mix of pro-innovation support (like the grants) and pretty aggressive transparency mandates for both private developers and public agencies. It’s a tricky balance to strike, and you can see the tension in the vote counts—most stuff passed easily, but the law enforcement transparency proposal had dissenters, even from the ACLU. That tells you where the real fights will be.
The Devil in the Data Details
Let’s talk about that transparency mandate for developers. On paper, requiring disclosure of dataset provenance and diversity is huge. It gets at the root of bias and reliability issues. But the trade secret carve-out is a massive loophole waiting to happen. Basically, a company could argue almost any meaningful detail about their training data is a protected secret. The real test will be if the eventual legislation defines that carve-out narrowly. Otherwise, it’s a disclosure rule in name only. The other recommendations, like having a human clinician in the loop for AI-driven healthcare denials, are more straightforward and follow a growing consensus. They’re less about the AI’s guts and more about its outputs and accountability.
A Grant Program With an Agenda
The proposed grant program is fascinating. It’s not just a generic “fund AI startups” pot of money. It’s explicitly aimed at founders outside the Seattle area and those with “inequitable access to capital.” The stated goal is to retain talent and maintain Washington’s relevance as a tech hub. That’s a pretty clear admission that the benefits of the AI boom are hyper-concentrated, and the state fears being left with just one mega-cluster. It’s a economic development play disguised as a public interest initiative. And look, it makes sense. If you’re going to build a new regulatory regime, you want to also cultivate a homegrown industry that can thrive within it. The fact that a similar bill (HB 1833) already stalled this session shows it’s not a guaranteed win, though.
The Long Road Ahead
Now, the big caveat: this is just a report. As we saw in 2025, turning task force recommendations into law is brutally hard. The interim report even openly admits which earlier bills modeled on its ideas have already stalled. The final report isn’t due until mid-2026, so this is a slow-moving process. And the gaps they acknowledge—no specific recommendations yet on election deepfakes, AI and IP, or companion chatbots—are some of the most heated topics right now. Washington is trying to build a careful, consensus-driven framework while the tech itself is evolving at a breakneck pace. It’s a race against time, and against the federal government, which could still swoop in with a preemption order. The next state legislative session will be the first real test of whether these ideas have any political traction.
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