President Donald Trump signed an executive order that aims to preempt US states from enacting rules governing artificial intelligence, a major departure from the typical federalist structure of American government that Trump said was necessary because of the issue’s high stakes.
In an Thursday evening signing ceremony in the Oval Office, Trump said the order would position the United States to win a competition with China to dominate the burgeoning AI industry. Coordinating policy among 50 different states would put the US at a disadvantage, Trump said, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping did not have similar restraints.
“This will not be successful unless they have one source of approval or disapproval,” he said. “It’s got to be one source. They can’t go to 50 different sources.”
The order creates a task force to monitor state laws on AI and to challenge them in court, and directs the commerce secretary to complete a review of state laws within three months.
David Sacks, the chair of a White House board on technology, said there were more than 1,000 pending AI bills in state legislatures.
White House staff secretary Will Scharf said during the Oval Office event that the order would “ensure that AI can operate within a single national framework in this country, as opposed to being subject to state level regulation that could potentially cripple the industry.”
“The big picture is that we’re taking steps to ensure that AI operates under a single national standard so that we can reap the benefits that will come from it.”
The order, a major assertion of presidential power over state governments and Congress, is likely to see court challenges, including from environmental groups that oppose AI expansion because of the energy resources the technology requires.
“Congress has repeatedly rejected attempts to undermine states’ and local communities’ efforts to protect themselves from the unchecked spread of AI, which is driving a wave of dangerous data center development,” Mitch Jones, the chief of policy and litigation at the advocacy group Food and Water Watch, said in a statement.
“We’ll be following the administration’s attempts to implement this farcical order, and we’ll fight it in Congress, in the states, in the courts, and with communities across this country.”
This article by States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity, was originally published by Louisiana Illuminator. It is republished under a Creative Commons license.
No dice; you need Chinese scientists and engineers.
One hidden surprise in Chump’s BBB was the moratorium on State regulation on AI for 10 years, although I’m no longer sure if that was true if this order has been signed separately. In any case, preventing US states from regulating AI is a bad idea. You have Zionist criminals running Palantir that want to spy on all Americans, censor them and aid and abett foreign war crimes using AI. You saw Israel using AI during the Gaza Genocide with ‘Where’s Daddy’ ‘Lavendar’ and ‘The Gospel’ AI killing algorithms – this was why the Gaza deathtoll was initially so wanton. The AI clearly failed, its intelligence can be thus questioned, it turned into a civilian killing machine. So the need for oversight is even greater, but not according to Zionist Chump.
The Israelification of the US is all but complete. Sleep with dogs, get rabies. That is the future of America – following in the footsteps of a psycho, Fascist Apartheid pariah state.
Hahaha…..1. US is not China. 2. China does this sort of things better than US, even Trump tries. 3. Mix of a horse and a mule is neither horse nor mule, is a bastard.
In order to compete with China, the US will have to backtrack on all their founding values, principles and the State-Federal checks and balances in place. And even with all that, there is no guarantee it will work out.
China is leading. USA is following. But in doing so, the USA is shedding its soul. And that is bound to crack up the country.