A stressful election cycle has come to an end. Donald Trump might be the forty seventh president of the United States, and with Republicans accountable for the Senate – and possibly the House of Representatives – his allies are poised to bring about fundamental changes at the very best levels of presidency.
The impact might be clearly felt within the AI industry, which largely rebels against federal policies. Trump has repeatedly said he plans to dismantle Biden's AI policy framework on “day one,” aligning himself with kingmakers who’ve sharply criticized all however the lightest regulations.
Biden's approach
Biden's AI policy got here into effect through an executive order passed in October 2023, the AI Executive Order. Congressional inaction on regulation led to the Executive Order, whose regulations are voluntary reasonably than mandatory.
The AI EO addresses the whole lot from advancing AI in healthcare to developing guidance to mitigate the danger of IP theft. But two of its more consequential provisions — which have drawn the ire of some Republicans — relate to the safety risks of AI and the implications for real-world security.
One provision directs firms that develop powerful AI models to report back to the federal government how they train and secure those models and to offer the outcomes of tests designed to look at model vulnerabilities. The other provision directs the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to write down guidance to assist firms discover and proper errors in models, including biases.
The AI EO has achieved rather a lot. Last 12 months, the Commerce Department established the US AI Safety Institute (AISI), a body dedicated to studying risks in AI systems, including systems with defense applications. The company also released latest software to enhance AI trustworthiness and tested key latest AI models through agreements with OpenAI and Anthropic.
Critics allied with Trump argue that the EO's reporting requirements are burdensome and effectively force firms to disclose their trade secrets. During a House hearing in March, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said they may “deter potential innovators and stop further ChatGPT-style breakthroughs.”
Because the necessities depend on an interpretation of the Defense Production Act, a Fifties law designed to support national defense, some Republicans in Congress have also called them an example of executive overreach.
At a Senate hearing in July, Trump Vice President JD Vance raised concerns that “preemptive attempts at overregulation” would “entrench the incumbent tech firms that we have already got.” Vance was too supportive antitrust law, including the efforts of FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan, who’s a pioneer Investigations the acquisitions of AI startups by large technology firms.
Several Republicans have equated NIST's work on AI with censorship of conservative speech. They accuse the Biden administration of trying to regulate AI development with liberal notions of disinformation and bias; Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) recently criticized NIST’s “Awakened AI Safety Standards” as a “speech control plan” based on “amorphous” social harms.
“If I’m re-elected,” Trump said at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last December, “I’ll repeal Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence and ban using AI to censor the speech of American residents from day one.”
Replacing the AI EO
So what could replace Biden’s AI EO?
Little will be gleaned from the AI executive orders Trump signed during his final term as president, which established national AI research institutes and directed federal agencies to prioritize AI research and development. Its EOs called for agencies to “protect civil liberties, privacy, and American values” when applying AI, support staff in acquiring AI-relevant skills, and promote using “trusted” technologies.
During his campaign, Trump promised policies that will “support AI development grounded in free expression and human flourishing,” but declined to enter detail.
Some Republicans have said they need NIST to give attention to the physical security risks of AI, including its ability to assist adversaries construct bioweapons (which Biden's EO also addresses). But they’ve also shied away from advocating latest restrictions on AI that would jeopardize parts of the NIST guidelines.
In fact, the fate of AISI, which is housed at NIST, is unclear. Although AISI has a budget, a director, and partnerships with AI research institutes worldwide, it may very well be disbanded by an easy repeal of Biden's EO.
In an open letter in October, a coalition of companies, nonprofits and universities called on Congress to pass laws codifying AISI before the tip of the 12 months.
Trump has acknowledged that AI “is”very dangerous” and that can require it massive amounts of power to develop and operate, which suggests a willingness to cope with the growing risks of AI.
Sarah Kreps, a political scientist specializing in US defense policy, doesn’t expect the White House to issue comprehensive AI regulations in the subsequent 4 years. “I don’t know that Trump’s views on AI regulation will reach a level of antipathy that causes him to repeal Biden’s AI EO,” she told TechCrunch.
Trade and government regulation
Dean Ball, a research fellow at George Mason University, agrees that Trump's victory likely portends a lenient regulatory system – one which relies on the applying of existing laws reasonably than the creation of recent ones. However, Ball predicts that this might encourage state governments, particularly in Democratic strongholds like California, to attempt to fill the void.
The government-led effort is well underway. In March, Tennessee passed a law protect Voice actor from AI Cloning. This summer, Colorado assumed a tiered, risk-based approach to AI deployments. And in September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed dozens of AI-related security laws, a few of which require firms to publish details about their AI training.
State policy makers have introduced This 12 months alone, almost 700 AI laws have been passed.
“How the federal government will reply to these challenges is unclear,” Ball said.
Hamid Ekbia, a public affairs professor at Syracuse University, believes Trump's protectionist policies could have an effect on AI regulation. He expects the Trump administration to impose stricter export controls on China, for instance – including controls on the technologies needed to develop AI.
The Biden administration has already issued a series of bans on the export of AI chips and models. However, that is the case for some Chinese firms allegedly Using loopholes to access the tools via cloud services.
“Global regulation of AI will suffer the results (of recent controls), despite circumstances that require greater global collaboration,” Ekbia said. “The political and geopolitical implications may very well be enormous, enabling authoritarian and oppressive use of AI world wide.”
If Trump imposes tariffs on the technologies needed to construct AI, it could also put pressure on the capital needed to fund AI research and development, says Matt Mittelsteadt, one other research fellow at George Mason University. During his campaign, Trump proposed a ten% tariff on all U.S. imports and 60% on products made in China.
“Perhaps trade policy may have the largest impact,” Mittelsteadt said. “Expect potential tariffs to have a large economic impact on the AI sector.”
Of course it's early. And while Trump largely avoided addressing AI in the course of the campaign, much of his platform — like his plan to limit H-1B visas and promote oil and gas — could have downstream effects on the AI industry.
Sandra Wachter, professor of information ethics on the Oxford Internet Institute, urged regulators, no matter their political affiliation, to not lose sight of the risks of AI, but reasonably its opportunities.
“These risks exist no matter where you stand on the political spectrum,” she said. “These pests don’t imagine in geography and don’t care about party lines. I can only hope that AI governance just isn’t reduced to a partisan issue – it’s a difficulty that affects all of us, in all places. We all must work together to search out good global solutions.”
