TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — AI is all around us and continues to grow at a rapid rate.

Congress is now considering bills to regulate artificial intelligence and some states are following its lead.

Oklahoma has only passed one bill aimed at limiting the industry in two decades.

Now, Oklahoma lawmakers are taking a stab at further regulating artificial intelligence.

“Regulations are important to ensure that there are guardrails for responsible use, but then also being sure that you’re not being too restricted where ai can be used,” Cody Allen, government regulations analyst for the Southern Council of State Governments, said.

Since 2003, Oklahoma legislators proposed 11 AI-related bills but passed just one.

In 2019, Oklahoma adopted Senate Bill 100 which requires eye patients to be assessed and treated by an optometrist rather than technology alone.

Since then Oklahoma’s AI regulations have stalled.

Legislators say it’s because of the sheer complexity of the technology.

“There’s not a whole lot of knowledge about it,” Dave Rader, state senator (R-Tulsa), said. “We want to learn about it and increase your knowledge of the subject so that we can better run legislation. We just don’t want to go willy nilly throwing a bill out there.”

This year, 39 states proposed over 200 AI-related bills.

“We’ve seen Alabama implement some protections so that AI can’t be the sole sort of evidentiary standard used for a conviction or an arrest,” Allen said. “North Carolina has a pilot for AI public school safety. West Virginia has another pilot for road optimization.”

Rader explained what they are doing in Oklahoma to regulate this issue.

“We are embryonic in our study,” Rader said. “Do we regulate or do we not? How are we protecting the citizens’ rights? Can we regulate it or not? If we just did those three things, I think that would be a huge step.”

This month, state lawmakers held two interim studies dealing with AI assessing the pros and cons, what to regulate and where to begin.

Last month Governor Kevin Stitt organized a task force to examine the technology.

While Oklahoma is making strides, Rader says it may still take a few years before legislators pass a bill regulating AI.