Trump Signs Executive Order To Combat State AI Regulation
"President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday intended to limit state regulation of artificial intelligence." At the same time, states are watering theirs down.
[Justin Hendrix at Tech Policy Press]
This is a gift to AI vendors, and more importantly, to the subset of wealthy investors that backed Trump and Vance:
“President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday intended to limit state regulation of artificial intelligence. In a ceremony in the Oval Office, Trump said AI is a strategic priority for the United States, and that there must be “a central source of approval” for regulations.”
This comes at a time when a raft of states have passed or are preparing to pass new legislation. For example, in New York, on the same day:
“The New York bill requires anyone producing or creating an ad to provide a disclosure if it includes AI-generated synthetic performers. A separate but related piece of legislation requires consent from heirs or executors if a person wants to use the name, image, or likeness of an individual for commercial purposes after their death.”
An AI safety bill due to be signed was substantially gutted by the Governor:
“The bill, known as the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Safety and Education (RAISE) Act, would in its original form have become the most expansive state-level regulation of AI for the testing and reporting of advanced “frontier” models. Co-authored by Assemblymember Alex Bores and Sen. Andrew Gounardes, the bill would put the onus on frontier model developers to create plans to make their models safer, proactively report “critical safety incidents,” and ban models deemed unsafe through testing from being released. It has been sitting on Hochul’s desk for months.”
It’s hard to tell which of these measures are driven by lobbying and donations, and which are simply the result of politicians being substantially AI-pilled, unwilling to be seen holding back what they see as a generational innovation. I’d put money on a little from column A and a little from column B. Either way, it’s not great that democratic processes for developing and enforcing regulations are being actively sidelined.
It’ll be interesting to see how well all of this has aged in a year or two.
Also of note is this bizarre comment from the President:
“I always thought it should be the SI, Supreme Intelligence, but, I guess somewhere along the line they decided to put the word artificial, that’s okay with me, it’s up to them. It’s a massive industry.”
Sure, okay.
[Link]