On the 23rd of July, the Trump Administration released their long-awaited AI Action Plan. Ai Action Plan. The administration is willing to give OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and other major players almost everything they asked for during the public consultation. Travis Hall, director of state engagement at Center for Democracy and Technology (), says that Trump’s vision for policy would put states and tech companies in a position to “extraordinary regulatory uncertainty.”
This starts with Trump trying to prevent states from regulating AI. In the original draft, the president had included an amendment which would have imposed 10-year moratoriums on any state-level AI regulations. The Senate voted 99-1 to remove the clause.
Trump seems to have missed the message. In his Action Plan the president signals that he will only allow federal agencies to award “AI-related” funds to states without “burdensome” AI regulation. Grace Gedye is a policy analyst at Consumer Reports. She said
“It is not really clear which discretionary funds will be deemed to be ‘AI-related’, and it’s also not clear which current state laws — and which future proposals — will be deemed ‘burdensome’ or as ‘hinder[ing] the effectiveness’ of federal funds. This leaves state legislators, governors, and other state-level leaders in a tight spot,” . Hall adds “It is extremely vague, and I think that is by design,” .
One of the problems with this proposal is that any discretionary funding can be deemed AI related. Hall suggests that a law such as the Colorado Artificial Intelligence Act (19459090) – which is designed to protect against algorithmic discrimination – could be viewed as a barrier to funding for technology enrichment in schools because they plan on teaching their students about AI.
A “generous” interpretation of “AI-related” could have a far-reaching impact. Machine learning technologies are now affecting every aspect of modern life.
That would be bad enough on its own, but the president wants the Federal Communications Commission to also evaluate whether state AI regulation interferes with its “ability to carry out its obligations and authorities under the Communications Act of 1934.” if Trump were to somehow implement this part of the plan, it would transform FCC into something that is very different than what it is now. Cody Venzke is senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. “It traditionally has not had jurisdiction over things like websites or social media. It’s not a privacy agency, and so given the fact that the FCC is not a full-service technology regulator, it’s really hard to see how it has authority over AI.”
Hall notes that this part of Trump’s plan is especially worrisome, given how the president has restricted the agency’s autonomy. Trump illegally dismissedthe two Democratic FCC commissioners in March. Anna Gomez, the Commission’s lone remaining Democrat, accused Republican Chair Brendan Carr in July of”weaponizing” the Agency “to silence critics.”
“It’s baffling that the president is choosing to go it alone and unilaterally try to impose a backdoor state moratorium through the FCC, distorting their own statute beyond recognition by finding federal funds that might be tangentially related to AI and imposing new conditions on them,” Venzke.
Igor Bonifacic, Engadget.
The president signed three executive orders on Wednesday to kick-start his AI agenda. One of those, titled “Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government,” limits federal agencies to only obtaining those AI systems that are “truth-seeking,” and free of ideology. The order states “LLMs shall be neutral, nonpartisan tools that do not manipulate responses in favor of ideological dogmas such as DEI,” . “LLMs shall prioritize historical accuracy, scientific inquiry, and objectivity, and shall acknowledge uncertainty where reliable information is incomplete or contradictory.”
It should be clear what the pitfalls are of a policy like this. Venzke said “The project of determining what is absolute truth and ideological neutrality is a hopeless task,” . Hall adds “Obviously you don’t want government services to be politicized, but the mandates and executive order are not workable and leave serious questions.”
“It’s very apparent that their goal is not neutrality,” . “What they’re putting forward is, in fact, a requirement for ideological bias, which is theirs, and which they’re calling neutral. With that in mind, what they’re actually requiring is that LLMs procured by the federal government include their own ideological bias and slant.”
Trump’s executive order creates a political test that companies such as OpenAI must pass, or risk losing government contract — something AI firms actively court. OpenAI launched ChatGPT Gov at the beginning of the year. It is a version designed for government agencies. xAI announced Grok For Government last week. Venzke said “If you’re building LLMs to satisfy government procurement requirements, there’s a real concern that it’s going to carry over to wider private uses,” .
It’s more likely that consumer-facing AI will conform to these same reactionary criteria if the Trump Administration finds a way to empower FCC to regulate AI. Brendan Carr has already used the Commission’s regulatory power to force companies to align themselves with the president’s stance on equity, diversity and inclusion. Verizon received FCC approval in May for its $20 billion merger of Frontier and Verizon after promising to stop all DEI practices. Skydance also made a similar promise to close its $8 Billion acquisition of Paramount Global.
Despite not being under direct government pressure, Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot demonstrated twice this past year what “maximally truth-seeking” can look like. In mid-May, it made unprompted statements about “white genocide” occurring in South Africa. More recently, it has gone full “MechaHitler” by taking a hard turn towards anti-semitism. Venzke says that Trump’s plan to prevent states from regulating AI, is “probably illegal,” but this is a small comfort, as the president has flouted the laws far too often to count, less than a month into his second term. The courts haven’t always ruled in his favor.
“It is possible that the administration will read the directives from the AI Action Plan narrowly and proceed in a thoughtful way about the FCC jurisdiction, about when federal programs actually create a conflict with state laws, and that is a very different conversation. But right now, the administration has opened the door to broad, sort of reckless preemption of state laws, and that is simply going to pave the way for harmful, not effective, AI.”
