Trump’s AI Executive Order Sticks it to Parents, Families, and States
President Trump’s recent Executive Order, “Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence,” is a gift to Big Tech and an insult to parents, families, and states, which have been clamoring for the government to enact common-sense legislation, as tech companies continue to release largely untested, and sometimes dangerous, technologies into homes and schools nationwide.
The Executive Order would impose a “minimally burdensome national policy framework for AI,” under which AI would be almost wholly unregulated. All fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Island have all introduced AI-related legislation this year.
“Parents around the country have been clamoring for sensible laws and regulations to protect children from the dangers of AI; the President has responded with a gold-plated gift to Big Tech.”
The problem is that, for all of their potential benefits, AI platforms and products still pose significant dangers to children. From ChatGPT offering to write a 16-year-old boy’s suicide note (he tragically took his own life) to the creation of an AI-powered teddy bear that gave children advice on BDSM sex and where to find knives, AI’s immense power is matched by its potential for harm – especially to children.
The Executive Order would create an AI Litigation Task Force whose sole purpose is to challenge state laws regulating AI. While Trump’s AI advisor, venture capitalist David Sacks, claims that “Kid safety, we’re going to protect. We’re not pushing back on that,” nothing in the Executive Order creates a child-safety exception to the litigation threat looming over states. The order would also coerce states by threatening to withhold their portion of a $42 billion fund to expand broadband access, punishing rural and underserved areas – a clawback that may well be unconstitutional.
The Executive Order purporting to preempt state action to ensure the safety of AI is wildly unpopular among the public and legislators. Last month, a similar AI state preemption proposal was opposed by 57 percent of Americans, with only 19 percent supporting it. And in today’s divided Congress, the Senate voted against a state preemption provision 99 to 1. Senator Brian Schatz has already stated that he would work with colleagues to introduce a bill to repeal the Executive Order in the coming days.
Lori Cohen noted, “the AI Executive Order is unwise, unsafe, and unconstitutional; what remains to be seen is whether it is thrown out by the courts or repealed by Congress… or both.”