Fifty years ago, Cambridge faced down a frightening new technology and chose to write the rules instead of running away. That decision built the biotech capital of the world. We can do the same thing with AI.
AI capabilities are growing rapidly. The amount of work these systems can do on their own is roughly doubling every few months, and its pace shows no sign of letting up.
There are ways this can benefit us all. Better treatments for debilitating diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. Green energy solutions like carbon capture and fusion to reverse and prevent environmental damage. Democratized expertise to empower potential small business owners.
But there are many risks. These tools have already been used to help plan cyberattacks, our schools are struggling to keep up with them, and it's too hard to predict what all of this might mean for your own job.
We can write good rules, and Massachusetts is exactly the place to do it.
In 1976, Harvard wanted to build a lab in Cambridge for a new technology: recombinant DNA. Neighbors packed City Hall with objections, and the mayor warned about unleashing Frankenstein.
Instead of refusing the technology altogether due to its risks, Cambridge established rules and procedures to make it safe. The city paused the research, created a review board of regular residents and technical scientists, and passed the first law anywhere in the world that governed this kind of research. That ordinance is still on the books today.
The clear rules not only ensured the safety of modern genetic research, but they also gave companies the certainty to build here. Because of this, Kendall Square grew into the biotech capital of the world. Other places copied Cambridge’s approach: Princeton, San Diego, Ann Arbor, and beyond. There's an entire book about how it all happened. A lot of life-saving treatments today trace back to the city council decision to write the rules rather than run from the future.
Massachusetts should do the same for AI today.
California, New York, and Illinois have already passed the country's first AI safety laws. They require large AI companies to publish safety plans, report serious incidents, and protect employee whistleblowers. Illinois ensures compliance using outside auditors. At a bare minimum, Massachusetts should hold itself to those same standards.
Beacon Hill is debating its own version right now, and on this one the public is out ahead of the politicians.
The other state laws ask companies to describe their own safety plans, but this doesn’t go far enough. We need binding requirements. These should apply before internal deployment, not just public release. Models should pass standardized tests for dangerous capabilities and be secured by strong access-control requirements. New cars first pass crash tests and new drugs first pass trials. It's common sense to do this for AI, too.
Frontier models should be tested by third-party experts. Companies shouldn’t be trusted to grade their own homework.
If a company's AI causes a catastrophe, that company should be held legally liable. When AI developers are on the hook for downsides, they’ll invest more to prevent them in the first place.
If these systems do actually create the wealth their builders keep promising, working families need to share in it.
Technology will keep moving no matter what any of us do about it. Policy is the tool we use to ensure we'll end up better off as technology accelerates. That, to me, is the entire point of doing this job well.
There is not a single engineer in the Massachusetts State Senate, and AI is moving so fast that even the people working on it are struggling to keep up. I studied engineering at MIT, I’ve built AI products myself, and I’ve spent years alongside the AI researchers and advocates shaping this policy. I don't claim to have every answer, because nobody does. But I do think I bring a particular insight to these questions and a real willingness to do the hard work of getting the answers right.
Fifty years ago, our community looked at an unsettling new technology, wrote the rules, and led an industry that delivered tangible benefits to everyday people. That is the Massachusetts way, and it is the work I want to take to Beacon Hill.