Gov. Spencer Cox told a gathering of policymakers and tech leaders Tuesday morning that as artificial intelligence seeps further into daily life, “We have to apply Utah values to this new technology.”
So his administration plans to launch what the governor called a “pro-human AI” initiative in an effort to shape the future of AI development and use in the state.
The move comes almost two years after lawmakers voted to create an Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy, which helped arrange the Utah AI Summit in downtown Salt Lake City where Cox made the announcement.
“We’ve used human ingenuity … to build machines and connect them together and take, again, all of human knowledge and employ it in whatever way we want, whatever way we decide,” Cox said. “But here’s the thing: We have to decide.”
Utah’s second-term Republican governor added, “I do not believe that government should be telling companies how to develop technologies.”
But the government should be acting to protect data privacy and children, Cox said. And Utah is acting, he continued, because Congress hasn’t taken on the responsibility.
His comments come as a contingent of federal lawmakers backed by President Donald Trump is eyeing a way to ban state AI regulations. Two attempts to add such a measure massive spending bills — most recently an annual defense budget bill making its way through Congress — have failed amid opposition, including from Utah officials.
The White House is reportedly weighing an executive order to undermine state AI laws through lawsuits and withholding federal funds.
“The government should not be regulating the development of AI, but the minute you decide to use those tools to give my kid a sexualized chatbot, then it’s my business, and it’s the government’s business,” Cox said, adding, “And Congress should not be stopping us from being able to do that.”
“I would much prefer that we have a Congress that can actually pass a bill, that could actually do something, that could function the way it was designed to function. But if it is not going to function, then the states must act, and we must have the ability to do that, and we will fight for that ability to do it,” Cox told the audience.
Utah’s initiative will spread across six areas: workforce, industry, state government, academia, public policy and learning, Cox said.
The state plans to launch a “pro-human AI academic consortium,” according to Cox, “to launch moonshot challenges that drive breakthroughs in human-centered innovation and advance human flourishing.”
It will also invest $10 million in developing curriculum to ensure Utah’s workforce is “AI-ready,” with focuses on the energy and so-called “deep tech” sectors. The latter includes producing semiconductors, quantum computing and other technologies foundational to AI.
“The goal here is to ensure that every Utah student and worker can adapt, up-skill and succeed as AI transforms the workplace,” Cox said.
And the governor is expanding the use of AI throughout state government.
In the upcoming legislative session, which begins in January, Cox said lawmakers will weigh regulations to reduce the negative impacts of AI chatbots, require more transparency around AI-generated deepfakes and restrain the use of AI in health care.
Earlier this year, the governor signed a law barring mental health chatbots from selling Utahns’ personal health data or using it to target users with ads.
Cox has dedicated much of his five years in office to implementing guardrails for social media companies — some of which have developed their own AI platforms — with the aim of minimizing harms to children. Parts of those efforts have been blocked in court.
Many of the possible downfalls of expected AI regulation mirror the criticisms of laws affecting children’s social media use. Opponents have worried about the limits such laws place on young people’s free expression, and whether content the Republican state deems harmful would include information helpful to vulnerable groups like LGBTQ+ youth.
Note to readers, Dec. 2, 4:15 p.m. • This story has been updated to reflect developments in deliberations over a federal ban on state AI regulations.