What government is and isn't regulating in tech. From a Capitol insider turned founder.
 | Laura Luise Davis, Co-Founder & CBO at USLege |
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
First edition.
FROM MY OP-ED IN THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER"Within decades, there will be more humanoid robots in this country than there are people. Are you comfortable with one of them raising your kids? With one of them in your daughter's bedroom? With your son forming his first idea of intimacy with a machine designed to never say no? These are not hypothetical questions. You will vote on them in the next five years. The bills are already being drafted by people who are not waiting for you to catch up."
I spent a decade in the rooms where laws get written: the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, state capitals, and contract lobbying. I have sat in more hearing rooms than I can count. Here is what keeps me up at night: those rooms are barely talking about the technology that is about to reorder everything.
This week the federal government moved to gate which AI models Americans can even access. Humanoid robots started shipping by the thousands. And in most statehouses, the most futuristic thing on the agenda is a deepfake disclaimer.
That gap, between how fast the future is arriving and how little our institutions are saying about it, is why SESSION_ exists. I am pro-technology. But being pro-technology is not the same as looking away from it. Every week I watch what government is, and is not, regulating, without a partisan axe to grind.
The future is in session, whether our legislatures show up for it or not.
Laura
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THE FUTURE, SHIPPED
Three things shipped this week that sound like science fiction. And the question I keep asking: is anyone in government regulating them?
Humanoids stopped being demos. They became a purchase order.
What happened. Boston Dynamics started shipping its electric Atlas humanoid, with the first 2026 units going to Hyundai and Google DeepMind. Figure's BotQ line is now building roughly one robot an hour. China's Unitree, which shipped more than 5,500 units in 2025, launched its H2. A tireless, superhuman-strength worker is now something you can put on a purchase order.
What was said. "So Atlas is our premier humanoid robot, and so it can pick things up, move things, operate things in environments that were built around the human form."
Jason Fiorillo, Chief Legal Officer, Boston Dynamics. U.S. House Energy and Commerce, June 30, 2026.
Jason Fiorillo, Boston Dynamics · U.S. House Energy & Commerce, Jun 30, 2026
▪ IS ANYONE REGULATING THIS?
Barely. The one federal hearing that engaged asked whether Congress should worry about foreign-made robots in sensitive infrastructure, not whether a superhuman-strength humanoid on a U.S. factory floor needs safety rules. No state has a liability framework for when an autonomous humanoid harms a person.
Musk says skip med school. The robot will out-operate the surgeon.
What happened. Optimus is Tesla's humanoid robot, the general-purpose machine Elon Musk wants to mass-produce. On Peter Diamandis's Moonshots podcast, Musk predicted that robot surgeons will outperform the best human surgeons within three years, and that by 2030 there will be more Optimus robots that are great surgeons than all the surgeons on Earth, with everyone getting better medical care than the president receives today.
What was said. "There will be more Optimus robots that are great surgeons than all surgeons on Earth."
Elon Musk, Moonshots podcast, reported by Fortune, January 2026. NYU bioethicist Arthur Caplan calls that timeline not credible, noting that validating a robot for complex surgery takes years.
▪ IS ANYONE REGULATING THIS?
No one. Scan every 2026 U.S. federal hearing on USLege and there is no hearing, and no bill in any state, on autonomous robotic surgery or humanoids delivering medical care. The closest anyone in Congress came was a warning about putting a 200-pound robot in an elder-care home before safety standards exist. Optimus is not on sale yet, and Musk's three-year surgeon timeline is a prediction, not a ship date. Either way, no legislature has written a rule for it.
China put a companion humanoid in the living room.
What happened. China's UBTECH launched a full-size companion humanoid, the U1, under a new consumer brand, marketed for emotional companionship, with onboard AI that reads facial expressions, tone, and speech to gauge your mood and adjust the conversation. Presales topped 2,000 units in under a week. U.S. companies are building the worker. China is going straight for the home.
What was said. "China now controls over 80% of the global humanoid robot market. These statistics are a national wake-up call."
Michael Robbins, President and CEO, Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). U.S. House Science, Space and Technology, "Robots Made in America," April 21, 2026.
Michael Robbins, President & CEO, AUVSI · U.S. House Science, Apr 21, 2026
▪ IS ANYONE REGULATING THIS?
This is the one place the tech and the law actually touch, and only halfway. Companion AI is starting to get regulated, but only the software: New York passed a kids' companion-chatbot bill 137 to 0, and Connecticut folded the companion-chatbot provisions of SB 86 into the sweeping AI law it enacted this spring, requiring companion chatbots to disclose they are AI and adding protections for minors. No one is regulating the physical humanoid that runs the companion AI.
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MEANWHILE, IN GOVERNMENT
The machines are shipping. Washington is regulating the software.
Washington is now gating which AI models you can get.
This week the federal government effectively shaped which AI Americans can access, without passing a law. The White House asked OpenAI to hold back its newest model, GPT-5.6, releasing it customer by customer to a short list of approved partners. Sam Altman told staff the government would be approving access customer by customer, with a broader release hoped for a couple of weeks later. It all runs through Executive Order 14409, signed June 2, 2026, which sets up a voluntary framework where developers give the government up to 30 days of pre-release access to covered frontier models. Section 3(c) says it is not mandatory licensing. Three weeks later, access is being cleared customer by customer.
The forward question, the one this newsletter will keep asking: will this keep happening? If the government previews every frontier model before you are allowed to use it, that is not a one-time safety review. That is the new release cycle.
The clearest proof of the pattern landed as this issue went out. Anthropic's Fable 5, one of its most powerful models, was pulled offline on June 12 under a Commerce Department order after researchers found a way to jailbreak it into finding software vulnerabilities. On June 30 the government cleared it, and as of today Fable 5 is back online and installed across Anthropic's platforms, after Anthropic trained a new safety classifier and agreed to give federal agencies early access to its frontier models before public release. Pulled by the government, restored by the government. That is the answer to whether this keeps happening.
Here is the twist that ties the whole issue together: the same Washington gating the models is also moving, through an earlier order (EO 14365), to stop the states from regulating AI at all. Most states are going the other way.
Rep. Andy Ogles, Subcommittee Chair · U.S. House Homeland Security, Jun 4, 2026
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THE HEAT MAP
Who's cracking down, who's asleep. This week: AI regulation, and who's allowed to do it.
COLOR KEY actively regulating · deregulating · mixed (50/50) · nothing / no mention
- Deregulating: just Idaho is openly hands-off. Its proposed SB 1067 would declare AI "an extension of free speech" and bar the state from constraining it.
- Mixed / narrow: 18 states have narrow or mixed laws, including Texas (TRAIGA, HB 149), Utah, and Florida.
- Actively regulating: 28 states, including California (SB 53, signed), New York (the RAISE Act), and Colorado (SB 189). Ohio lawmakers filed bipartisan resolutions opposing the federal preemption order.
- Nothing / no mention: Nevada, Montana, and North Dakota are silent, mostly by calendar. Washington, D.C. and the federal government are not scored on this state map; federal action is covered above.
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KEEPING SCORE
TECH
Humanoids ship by the hour (Figure, Atlas, Unitree). Musk predicts robot surgeons within three years. China is fielding armed robot-dog swarms.
GOVERNMENT
No state framework says who is liable when an autonomous humanoid harms a person. The one binding federal AI action, EO 14409, gatekeeps chatbots, not robots.
THE LAG
The machine that lifts 110 pounds ships this week. The law for it does not exist.
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THE BIG QUESTION
Some state legislatures meet every year. Some meet only every other year. A few are already adjourned until 2027. Meanwhile a new frontier model can ship, get gated, and reshape a market inside a single month. So here is the real question: can government convene often enough to regulate and protect its citizens, or will legislatures have to start meeting more frequently because the technology moves faster than they do? And the harder question underneath it: is this still a free America? Should we be regulating this tech more, or less? Or should we let America innovate at the speed of innovation?
Hit reply. I read every one.
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WHO'S WRITING
| Laura Luise Davis, Capitol insider to tech founder. |
I'm a lobbyist turned founder turned coder. I know a lot of lobbyists. And legislators. And agency leaders. They're my customers. Now I spend hours every day inside AI, sharing what I'm realizing and what government is and isn't regulating. This is not a how-to. It's a warning about what's coming.
WHO IT'S FOR
Tech: Cool. DM me if you need help.
Gov: You need to learn what's happening in tech.
Lobby: You're really going to want to read this.
Send this to someone. Know a founder about to get blindsided by a state law, or a policy person who'd rather see it coming? Forward this. SESSION grows by word of mouth.
Are you in tech and want to be on my podcast, Bills & Business? Reach out to me: [email protected].
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Book a demo · Written by Laura Luise Davis, Co-Founder & CBO at USLege · lauraluisedavis.com · AUSTIN · DC
SOURCES: EO 14409 (whitehouse.gov), Anthropic Fable 5, USLege clips (above), bills CA SB 53 / NY RAISE Act / CO SB 189 / TX HB 149 / ID SB 1067 / NY A10379 / CT SB 86, Fortune, Boston Dynamics, Figure, Unitree, TechEBlog, Interesting Engineering. Heat map: data via USLege; state sentiment editorial.