Donald Trump maneuvers again to protect the giants of the artificial intelligence. The president of the USA signed a controversial executive order this Thursday that blocks state laws that seek to put limits on the deployment of this technologya blow to the regulation that has outraged both Democrats and Republicans and is a great victory for the efforts of the digital industry.
As he announced on Monday, Trump will veto the mosaic of legislative projects promoted by the States to unify them into a single federal regulation.
“It has to be a fountain, you can’t have to go to 50 sources different,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during the signing event.
In these statements, Trump has also repeated an argument with which he has lobbied in favor of this Silicon Valley regulation, which has convinced the president that state regulations represented a disadvantage for the United States in the face of competition with China, where there is only centralized power. “China “He has only one vote and it is President Xi (Jinping),” Trump said. “He says ‘do it’ and there is nothing more to say.”
The White Housedoes not hide that alliance with Silicon Valley and will be decisive in establishing what large manufacturing companies can and cannot do. IA as OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic o xAI. The creator of ChatGPT and funds venture capital as Andreessen Horowitza Trump ally, have pressured the administration to bury state regulations.
“At this point in the race, we are winning EVERY COUNTRY, but that won’t last long if we have 50 states, many of them bad actors, involved in the RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS… AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY!” Trump had lamented in a message shared on Monday on the Truth Social platform. “You can’t expect a company to get 50 approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!”
Coercion against States
The order has ended up confirming a draft that was circulated last month in Washington which included several coercive measures against states that have regulated AI. As in that draft, the final text ends up giving 30 days to the attorney general to create a working group that will be specifically dedicated to challenging state legislation that is not consistent with the order. It also gives the commerce secretary 90 days to identify which laws can be taken to court.
States with regulations that are ruled as restrictive with AI will also see their ability to obtain federal grants from a program to ensure broadband connection. Commerce also has 90 days to make public the conditions on which access to this aid will depend.
With this coup, Trump maneuvers to defend the interests of the technology giants who lead the rise of the call generative AIa development that is driving a economy American that would otherwise be much slower and susceptible to recession.
This lifeline for Silicon Valley is also a setback to public scrutiny of an industry whose social, economic and environmental impact continues to grow. A coalition of more than 230 environmental groups asked the Congress stop the construction of new data centers in the country, a crucial extractive infrastructure for AI that is straining residents’ access to water and energy. Household electricity prices have increased 13% under Trump. At least 16 projects have been canceled or postponed due to local opposition. Both data are a danger for the president.
Democratic and Republican opposition
The executive order has also sparked outrage from both democrats as republicans. State leaders of both parties, from California to Florida, have called for measures to limit the impact of AI, ban the creation of deepfakes political or sexual and ensure the protection of privacy of the citizens. In the absence of federal regulations, the 50 states have presented about a thousand bills to regulate AI and 100 of the rules have received the green light in 38 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
David Sacks, White House AI and cryptocurrency czar, said this Thursday that the government plans to maintain laws that protect the safety of minors but pursue state legislation that is deemed too costly.
At the beginning of summer, the Senate American already rejected by 99 votes in favor and only one against an initiative with which Trump wanted to prohibit state regulation of AI for 10 years. In November he tried again by asking Congress to add that clause to a defense bill, but the proposal ran into opposition from both lawmakers and state attorneys general.
MAGA Gap
Trump’s order also tests the loyalty of members of the national populist movement MAGA who have been denouncing the deregulation of AI for months. “Sacks (AI czar Trump) has failed miserably twice in his attempt to impose AI amnesty in legislation that had to be approved, and has turned the concept into something toxic,” criticized the former Trumpist strategist and far-right guru. Steve Bannon in a message shared with The Wall Street Journal. “The executive order will carry away that stench.”
The ideologue of Trumpism Steve Bannon makes a controversial gesture described as Nazi during the Conservative Political Action Conference last February. / CPAC / EFE
The refusal has led the president to skip the democratic process, again, to turn his will into law by executive order. Now, the White House veto could reach the courtsand legal experts assure that Trump does not have legal authority to intervene in the laws of the states, an authority that falls to the Congress .
Subscribe to continue reading
