No official summary available for this bill.
[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2937 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 2937
To establish legal standards for advanced artificial intelligence
products.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
September 29, 2025
Mr. Durbin (for himself and Mr. Hawley) introduced the following bill;
which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To establish legal standards for advanced artificial intelligence
products.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Aligning
Incentives for Leadership, Excellence, and Advancement in Development
Act'' or the ``AI LEAD Act''.
(b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents for this Act is as
follows:
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.
Sec. 2. Findings.
Sec. 3. Definitions.
TITLE I--ALIGNING INCENTIVES FOR SAFETY, INNOVATION AND UNITED STATES
COMPETITIVENESS
Sec. 101. Developer liability for harm to business or consumer.
Sec. 102. Deployer liability for harm to business or consumer.
TITLE II--UNCONSCIONABLE LIABILITY LIMITATIONS
Sec. 201. Unconscionable liability limitations.
TITLE III--ENFORCEMENT
Sec. 301. Federal cause of action.
Sec. 302. Special rule for deployers.
Sec. 303. Period of limitations.
Sec. 304. Preemption.
Sec. 305. Severability.
TITLE IV--REGISTRATION OF FOREIGN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM
PROVIDERS
Sec. 401. Foreign agent registration requirement.
Sec. 402. Enforcement.
Sec. 403. Public registry.
TITLE V--EFFECTIVE DATE
Sec. 501. Effective date.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) Artificial intelligence systems are products that shift
decision-making power and responsibility away from humans to
software-based systems, often without direct human oversight.
(2) These products, while holding great promise, have
caused and will cause harm to businesses and individuals. For
example, multiple teenagers have tragically died after being
exploited by an artificial intelligence chatbot.
(3) Unpredictable allocations of liability jeopardize
public safety and the financial well-being of both individuals
and entire industries, particularly the small businesses of the
United States, and adversely affect the Federal Government and
taxpayers.
(4) Product liability law can help to address harms caused
by artificial intelligence systems that affect interstate
commerce by incentivizing safety, providing certainty to
artificial intelligence developers and deployers to continue to
innovate, and ensuring the competitiveness of the United
States.
(5) A Federal products liability framework for artificial
intelligence systems will remove barriers to interstate
commerce and protect individuals' due process rights.
(6) This Act establishes Federal legislative guidelines for
products liability without implicating expressive speech to
ensure more predictable legal outcomes for individuals and
industries and promotes business innovation.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Artificial intelligence system.--
(A) In general.--The term ``artificial intelligence
system'' means any software, data system, application,
tool, or utility--
(i) that is capable of making or
facilitating predictions, recommendations,
actions, or decisions for a given set of human-
or machine-defined objectives; and
(ii) that uses machine learning algorithms,
statistical or symbolic models, or other
algorithmic or computational methods (whether
dynamic or static) that affect or facilitate
actions or decision-making in real or virtual
environments.
(B) Inclusion.--An artificial intelligence system
may be integrated into, or operate in conjunction with,
other hardware or software.
(2) Claimant.--The term ``claimant'' means any person,
including a class of persons, who brings a liability action.
(3) Covered product.--The term ``covered product'' means an
artificial intelligence system.
(4) Deployer.--The term ``deployer'' means a person,
including a developer, who uses or operates a covered product
for--
(A) the person's own personal or commercial use; or
(B) use by a third party.
(5) Design.--The term ``design'', with respect to a covered
product--
(A) means the intended or known material
characteristics of the covered product; and
(B) includes--
(i) any intended or known formulation of
the covered product and the usual result of the
intended development or other processes used to
produce the covered product, including
unexpected skills or behaviors that appear in
the covered product;
(ii) the selection of any data used for
training a covered product through fitting its
learnable parameters; and
(iii) training, testing, auditing, and
fine-tuning the covered product.
(6) Developer.--The term ``developer'' means a person who
designs, codes, produces, owns, or substantially modifies a
covered product for--
(A) the person's own personal or commercial use; or
(B) use by a third party.
(7) Express warranty.--The term ``express warranty'' means
any material, positive statement, affirmation of fact, promise,
or description relating to a covered product, including any
sample or model of a covered product.
(8) Harm.--The term ``harm'' means, with respect to the
effect of the use of a covered product--
(A) damage to property other than the covered
product itself;
(B) personal physical injury, illness, or death;
(C) financial or reputational injury;
(D) mental or psychological anguish, emotional
distress, or distortion of a person's behavior that
would be highly offensive to a reasonable person; or
(E) any loss of consortium or services or other
loss deriving from any type of harm described in
subparagraph (A), (B), (C), or (D).
(9) Liability action.--The term ``liability action'' means
a civil action brought under section 301 based on any theory
for harm caused by a covered product or covered product use.
(10) Person.--The ``person'' means any individual,
corporation, company, association, firm, partnership, society,
joint stock company, or other entity, including any government
entity or unincorporated association of persons.
(11) Substantial modification.--The term ``substantial
modification'', with respect to a covered product--
(A) means any deliberate change made to the covered
product by a deployer that--
(i) was not authorized or reasonably
anticipated by the developer when the covered
product left the control of the developer; and
(ii) changes the purpose, use, function,
design, or intended use or manner of use of the
covered product from that for which the covered
product was originally designed, tested, or
intended; and
(B) does not include a modification that solely
reduces or mitigates a new or additional risk.
(12) Under a legal disability.--The term ``under a legal
disability'', with respect to a person, means the person lacks
the capacity to understand, make, or communicate decisions
regarding the person's legal rights--
(A) because of a mental illness or intellectual
disability; or
(B) because the person is under the age of 18.
TITLE I--ALIGNING INCENTIVES FOR SAFETY, INNOVATION AND UNITED STATES
COMPETITIVENESS
SEC. 101. DEVELOPER LIABILITY FOR HARM TO BUSINESS OR CONSUMER.
(a) In General.--In any liability action, the developer shall be
liable to a claimant if the claimant establishes by a preponderance of
the evidence--
(1) that--
(A) the developer failed to exercise reasonable
care with respect to the design of the covered product;
and
(B) the failure to exercise reasonable care was a
proximate cause of harm to the claimant;
(2) that--
(A) the developer failed to exercise reasonable
care with respect to providing adequate instructions or
warnings applicable to the covered product that
allegedly caused the harm that is the subject of the
complaint; and
(B) the failure to exercise reasonable care with
respect to providing adequate instructions or warnings
was a proximate cause of harm to the claimant;
(3) that--
(A) the developer made an express warranty
applicable to the covered product that allegedly caused
the harm that is the subject of the complaint;
(B) the covered product failed to conform to the
warranty; and
(C) the failure of the covered product to conform
to the warranty was a proximate cause of harm to the
claimant; or
(4) that--
(A) the covered product was, at the time of sale or
distribution, in a defective condition unreasonably
dangerous when used or misused in a reasonably
foreseeable manner; and
(B) the defective condition was a proximate cause
of the harm to the claimant.
(b) Defective Design.--
(1) In general.--In any liability action against a
developer alleging that a covered product is unreasonably
dangerous because of a defective design, as described in
subsection (a)(1), the claimant shall be required to prove
that, at the time of sale or distribution of the covered
product by the developer, the foreseeable risks of harm posed
by the covered product could have been reduced or avoided by
the adoption of a reasonable alternative design by the
developer, and the omission of the alternative design renders
the covered product not reasonably safe.
(2) Manifestly unreasonable design.--Notwithstanding
paragraph (1), in a liability action described in that
paragraph, if the design of a covered product is found to be
manifestly unreasonable, a claimant shall not be required to
prove the existence of a reasonable alternative design.
(3) Circumstantial evidence supporting inference of covered
product defect.--In a liability action described in subsection
(a)(1), it may be inferred that the harm sustained by the
claimant was caused by a covered product defect existing at the
time of sale or distribution, without proof of a specific
defect, when the incident that harmed the claimant--
(A) was of a kind that ordinarily occurs as a
result of covered product defect; and
(B) was not, in the particular case, solely the
result of causes other than covered product defect
existing at the time of sale or distribution.
(4) Noncompliance and compliance with required covered
product safety statutes or regulations.--
(A) Noncompliance.--For purposes of a liability
action described in subsection (a)(1), if a covered
product does not comply with an applicable covered
product safety statute or administrative regulation,
the covered product shall be deemed defective with
respect to the risks sought to be reduced by the
statute or regulation.
(B) Compliance.--For purposes of a liability action
described in subsection (a)(1), the court may consider
a covered product's compliance with an applicable
covered product safety statute or administrative
regulation in determining whether the covered product
is defective with respect to the risks sought to be
reduced by the statute or regulation, but such
compliance does not preclude as a matter of law a
finding of covered product defect.
(c) Failure to Warn.--
(1) In general.--For purposes of a liability action
described in subsection (a)(2), a covered product shall be
considered defective because of inadequate instructions or
warnings if--
(A) the foreseeable risks of harm posed by the
covered product could have been reduced or avoided by
the provision of reasonable instructions or warnings by
the developer; and
(B) the omission of the instructions or warnings
renders the covered product not reasonably safe.
(2) Adequate instruction or warning.--For purposes of
paragraph (1), an adequate instruction or warning is one that a
reasonably prudent person in the same or similar circumstances
would have provided with respect to a reasonably foreseeable
risk and that communicates sufficient information on the
reasonably foreseeable risks and safe use of the covered
product, taking into account the characteristics of, and the
ordinary knowledge common to, an ordinary user of the covered
product.
(3) Knowledge.--In a liability action described in
subsection (a)(2), the claimant shall be required to prove
that, at the time the covered product left the developer's
control, the developer knew of or, in light of then-existing
scientific and technical knowledge, reasonably should have
foreseen, the risk that caused the claimant's harm.
(4) Open and obvious.--
(A) In general.--In a liability action described in
subsection (a)(2), a developer shall not be liable for
failure to instruct or warn about a foreseeable risk
that is open and obvious to the user of the covered
product, taking into account the characteristics of,
and the ordinary knowledge common to, an ordinary user
of the covered product.
(B) Minors.--For purposes of subparagraph (A), a
risk shall be presumed to not be open and obvious to a
user of a covered product who is under 18 years old.
(5) Noncompliance and compliance with required covered
product safety statutes or regulations.--
(A) Noncompliance.--In a liability action described
in subsection (a)(2), if a covered product does not
comply with an applicable covered product safety
statute or administrative regulation, the covered
product shall be deemed defective due to inadequate
instructions or warnings with respect to the risks
sought to be reduced by the statute or regulation.
(B) Compliance.--In a liability action described in
subsection (a)(2), the court may consider a covered
product's compliance with an applicable covered product
safety statute or administrative regulation in
determining whether the covered product is defective
due to inadequate instructions or warnings with respect
to the risks sought to be reduced by the statute or
regulation, but such compliance does not preclude as a
matter of law a finding of covered product defect.
(d) Strict Liability of Developer for Unreasonably Dangerous or
Defective Covered Products.--
(1) In general.--In a liability action described in
subsection (a)(4), the developer of a covered product shall be
strictly liable for harm caused by the defective condition of
the covered product, notwithstanding--
(A) that the developer exercised all possible care
in the design or distribution of the covered product;
or
(B) that the claimant did not purchase the covered
product directly from the developer or otherwise enter
into a contractual relationship with the developer.
(2) Substantial modification.--A developer shall not be
liable under subsection (a)(4) for harm solely caused by a
substantial modification.
SEC. 102. DEPLOYER LIABILITY FOR HARM TO BUSINESS OR CONSUMER.
(a) In General.--A deployer shall be deemed to be liable as a
developer under section 101 for harm caused by a covered product if--
(1) the deployer makes a substantial modification to the
covered product; or
(2) the deployer intentionally misuses the covered product
contrary to its intended use and that misuse is the proximate
cause of harm to the claimant.
(b) Use Intended by Developer Is Not Modification or Misuse.--
(1) In general.--For purposes of subsection (a), a use of a
covered product that is intended by the developer of the
covered product does not constitute a substantial modification
to or misuse of the covered product.
(2) Inference of intended use.--For purposes of paragraph
(1), if a developer does not specify an intended use for a
covered product, intended use shall be inferred by the targeted
market and manner of distribution.
(c) Licensing.--Subject to section 302, any deployer licensing a
covered product shall not be liable to a claimant for a violation of
section 101 solely by reason of ownership or use of the covered
product.
TITLE II--UNCONSCIONABLE LIABILITY LIMITATIONS
SEC. 201. UNCONSCIONABLE LIABILITY LIMITATIONS.
(a) Contract With Deployer.--
(1) Prohibition.--A developer may not include language in a
contract with a deployer that waives any right, proscribes any
forum or procedure, or unreasonably limits liability under this
Act or applicable State law related to harm caused by the
covered product under section 101.
(2) Unenforceable.--Language in a contract that violates
paragraph (1) shall be unenforceable.
(b) Terms and Conditions.--
(1) Prohibition.--A developer or a deployer may not include
language in terms and conditions relevant to a covered product
that waives any right, proscribes any forum or procedure, or
unreasonably limits liability under this Act or applicable
State law related to harm caused by the covered product under
section 101 or 102.
(2) Unenforceable.--Language in terms and conditions that
violates paragraph (1) shall be unenforceable.
TITLE III--ENFORCEMENT
SEC. 301. FEDERAL CAUSE OF ACTION.
The Attorney General, any attorney general of a State, an
individual or the legal representative of such an individual, or a
class of individuals may bring a civil action in a district court of
the United States against a developer or deployer for a violation of
section 101, 102, or 201 to obtain--
(1) injunctive relief;
(2) in a case brought by the Attorney General, civil
penalties;
(3) damages, restitution, or other compensation on behalf
of individuals;
(4) reasonable attorney fees and other litigation costs
reasonably incurred; or
(5) in a case brought by the Attorney General or a State
attorney general, such other relief as the Attorney General or
State attorney general may consider to be appropriate.
SEC. 302. SPECIAL RULE FOR DEPLOYERS.
(a) Standing in for the Developer.--If the developer is not a party
to a liability action because the developer is not subject to the
court's jurisdiction, is insolvent, or cannot otherwise be made to
answer for the harm, the deployer may be held liable to the same extent
that the developer would have been liable under section 101.
(b) Dismissal of Deployer.--A court shall dismiss the deployer from
a liability action, upon motion, if--
(1) the developer--
(A) is a party to the action; and
(B) is subject to the court's jurisdiction;
(2) the developer is not insolvent or otherwise unable to
satisfy any likely judgment; and
(3) the deployer is not otherwise liable under section 102.
(c) Joint Fault.--
(1) In general.--If both the developer and the deployer
contributed to the harm under sections 101 and 102, each person
may be held jointly and severally liable for the portion of
harm caused by that person's conduct.
(2) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this subsection shall
limit the right of a claimant to maintain a liability action
against the developer, the deployer, or both, if the claimant
can establish that each person contributed to the harm under
sections 101 and 102.
(d) Indemnification and Attorney Fees.--
(1) Right to seek indemnification.--A deployer that is held
liable for harm caused by the developer under subsection (a)
may pursue indemnification, including the recovery of attorney
fees and litigation costs, from the developer.
(2) Limitation.--If the deployer is determined to be at
fault for a portion of the harm under subsection (c),
indemnification under paragraph (1) of this subsection shall be
limited to the portion of damages, fees, or costs attributable
to the conduct of the developer.
(e) Preservation of Claimant's Rights.--Nothing in this subsection
shall limit the right of the claimant to maintain a liability action
against the developer, the deployer, or both persons, if the claimant
can establish that each person contributed to the harm under sections
101 and 102.
SEC. 303. PERIOD OF LIMITATIONS.
(a) In General.--Except as provided in subsection (b), a liability
action may be filed not later than 4 years after the date on which the
claimant discovered or, in the exercise of reasonable care, should have
discovered--
(1) the harm that is the subject of the action; and
(2) the cause of the harm.
(b) Legal Disability.--In the case of a person who is under a legal
disability, the period of limitations under subsection (a) for a
liability action brought by that person shall be tolled until the
person ceases to be under a legal disability.
(c) Tolling.--The period of limitations under subsection (a) shall
be tolled from the date of the filing of a complaint against a
developer or deployer to the date that a court enters a final judgment
in the case.
SEC. 304. PREEMPTION.
(a) In General.--This Act supersedes State law only where State law
conflicts with the provisions of this Act.
(b) Minimum Protections.--Nothing in this Act shall prevent a State
from enacting or enforcing protections that align with the principles
of harm prevention, accountability, and transparency for a covered
product that are stronger than such protections under this Act.
SEC. 305. SEVERABILITY.
If any provision of this Act, or an amendment made by this Act, is
determined to be unenforceable or invalid, the remaining provisions of
this Act and amendments made by this Act shall not be affected.
TITLE IV--REGISTRATION OF FOREIGN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM
DEVELOPERS
SEC. 401. FOREIGN AGENT REGISTRATION REQUIREMENT.
(a) Designation Required.--Before making a covered product
available in the United States, a foreign developer shall designate an
agent for service of process.
(b) Requirements.--The designation of an agent under subsection (a)
shall--
(1) be in writing and submitted to the Attorney General;
(2) include a written acceptance by the agent; and
(3) specify the full legal name and address of both the
foreign developer and the agent.
(c) Agent Qualifications.--A designated agent under subsection (a)
shall be a permanent resident of the United States.
(d) Updates.--A foreign developer of a covered product shall notify
the Attorney General of any change to the designated agent under
subsection (a) or the contact information thereof not later than 15
days after the change.
SEC. 402. ENFORCEMENT.
(a) Prohibition.--A foreign developer of a covered product that
fails to designate an agent in accordance with section 401 may not
deploy any covered product in the United States.
(b) Enforcement.--The Attorney General may seek injunctive relief
to prevent a violation of subsection (a).
SEC. 403. PUBLIC REGISTRY.
The Attorney General shall maintain a publicly accessible registry
of designated agents of foreign developers of covered products.
TITLE V--EFFECTIVE DATE
SEC. 501. EFFECTIVE DATE.
This Act shall apply with respect to any liability action commenced
on or after the date of enactment of this Act without regard to whether
the harm that is the subject of the liability action or the conduct
that caused the harm occurred before that date of enactment.
<all>
Introduced in Senate
Read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. (text: CR S6836-6838)
Llama 3.2 · runs locally in your browser
Ask anything about this bill. The AI reads the full text to answer.
Enter to send · Shift+Enter for new line