[SATIRE]

SAN FRANCISCO — Major tech companies paused AI rollouts this week. They are not fixing bugs. They are buying maps. The fight between state and federal laws has created a compliance nightmare.

Engineers can no longer just ship code. They need to know exactly where the user is standing. “We used to hire developers,” said Sanjay Patel, VP of Strategic Blocking. “Now we hire geographers. Our spellcheck is legal in Utah. It is a felony in Nevada. If a user walks across the border, we have to remote wipe their phone. It is the only way to be safe.”

The issue is that states are passing conflicting rules. A feature required in one place is banned in another. Companies are building “geofence walls” to cope. “California requires the AI to be helpful,” explained Chloe O’Malley, Director of Risk Avoidance. “Texas requires it to be brutally honest. We found those two goals are impossible to do at the same time. So in those states, the AI just hums quietly.”

Some firms are taking extreme measures. One cloud provider now requires users to submit a notarized utility bill to access the ‘Help’ menu. “We need proof of residence,” O’Malley noted. “We cannot risk an unauthorized grammar correction in a strict liability zone. The fines are too high.”

At press time, Google Maps announced a new feature. It routes drivers around states with strict AI laws so their voice assistant does not get arrested.

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