Mark Pinsley, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania Senate District 16, believes workers should share in the gains from artificial intelligence, and people should have real legal control over their own data, voice and image.
Jobs and profits
- Share the gains. If a company makes more profit because of AI, its employees should share in it.
- Pay for retraining. If a company replaces workers with AI, it should pay to train them for new jobs.
- Tax mass replacement. If a company makes very large profits while using AI to employ far fewer people, it should pay an extra tax.
Why the last one: right now, when a company replaces workers with AI, it keeps the savings — and the public pays the costs, through unemployment benefits, retraining and lost tax revenue. Pinsley’s tax puts some of that cost back on the company.
AI also has a cost you can see on your electric bill. The computing power behind AI runs in data centers, which are driving up power prices across the region. That’s why Pinsley would put a statewide moratorium on new data centers until Pennsylvania has real rules. More: What rules does Pennsylvania put on data centers, and what would Mark Pinsley add?
Health care
- Mark Pinsley supports the Protecting Patients Act (HB 2100), which would establish comprehensive safeguards and regulations for the use of mental health chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) in counseling services. The primary goal of the legislation is to ensure that a licensed human professional remains the primary provider of care and that patient data remains strictly protected.
- Mark Pinsley supports the Regulation of the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare Act (HB 1925), which would establish explicit mechanisms for auditing and enforcing data privacy compliance, including mandatory annual AI reviews, annual compliance statements, and explicit powers for state agencies to review internal records and evaluate an organization’s claims regarding privacy and data protection. (ABC27 News, September 30, 2026)
Your data and your identity
- Control your data. People should have strong legal rights over how their personal information is collected, stored, shared and sold — with clear consent and real choices.
- Own your voice and image. People should have rights over their voice, image, likeness and creative work.
- Label fakes. Deepfakes and AI impersonations should be clearly disclosed.
- Limit surveillance. Restrict government use of facial recognition.
- Ban surveillance pricing. Companies shouldn’t use your personal data to charge you a different price than your neighbor. Two bills to do this — SB 1401 and SB 1205 — are waiting in Senate committees. (SB 1401 · SB 1205)
Where the two candidates agree and disagree on AI
Coleman voted yes on the SAFECHAT Act, Senate Bill 1090, which sets safeguards for children using AI chatbots. It passed the Senate 49–1 on March 17, 2026 — the lone no vote was Sen. Doug Mastriano.
That bill protects people who choose to use an AI chatbot. It does nothing for everyone else — the voter who may never use AI at all, and who is shown a political ad, a product review, a news clip or a voice on the phone that a machine made and nobody labeled. Senate Bill 806 is the one that covers those people, and that is the one Coleman voted against.
Senate Bill 806 requires businesses to disclose when they use AI to create the images, video, audio or text they use to sell products. It was written by a Democrat and backed by members of both parties, including Republicans and Sen. Nick Miller, the Lehigh Valley’s other state senator.
It passed the Senate 48–2 on June 10, 2026. Jarrett Coleman was one of the two “no” votes. (Roll Call 421 · SB 806) SB 806 passed the House 163–40 on October 7. (Roll Call 1510)
Forty-eight senators agreed that companies shouldn’t be able to pass off AI-made ads as real. Coleman didn’t. More: What is Jarrett Coleman’s voting record in the Pennsylvania senate?
Pinsley supports the bill and would go further. His view is simple: you should be told when what you’re reading, watching or hearing was made by a machine.
“AI will take jobs anyway.”
Pinsley agrees AI will replace some jobs. The question isn’t whether to stop it — it’s whether workers land somewhere when it happens, and whether AI is used as a tool to help people work rather than a replacement for them.
He has an answer for where they land: the trades. Building renewables, battery storage and grid upgrades takes electricians, line workers and construction crews, work a computer can’t do. Pinsley would pair his push for clean energy with apprenticeships, so a worker whose job goes to AI can earn while learning a trade that’s in demand. More: How do Mark Pinsley and Jarrett Coleman compare on electric bills and utilities?
Pinsley has been Lehigh County Controller since 2020. He faces Jarrett Coleman on November 3, 2026, in a district covering parts of Lehigh and Bucks counties.
