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US President Donald Trump is considering signing an executive order that would seek to challenge state efforts to regulate artificial intelligence through lawsuits and the withholding federal funding, WIRED has learned.<\/p>\n
A draft of the order viewed by WIRED directs US Attorney General Pam Bondi to create an \u201cAI Litigation Task Force,\u201d whose purpose is to sue states in court for passing AI regulations that allegedly violate federal laws governing things like free speech and interstate commerce.<\/p>\n
Trump could sign the order, which is currently titled \u201cEliminating State Law Obstruction of National AI Policy,\u201d as early as this week, according to four sources familiar with the matter. A White House spokesperson told WIRED that \u201cdiscussion about potential executive orders is speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The order says that the AI Litigation Task Force will work with several White House technology advisors, including the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto David Sacks, to determine which states are violating federal laws detailed in the order. It points to state regulations that \u201crequire AI models to alter their truthful outputs\u201d or compel AI developers to \u201creport information in a manner that would violate the First Amendment or any other provision of the Constitution,\u201d according to the draft.<\/p>\n
The order specifically cites recently enacted AI safety laws in California and Colorado that require AI developers to publish transparency reports about how they train models, among other provisions. Big Tech trade groups, including Chamber of Progress\u2014which is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Google, and OpenAI\u2014have vigorously lobbied against these efforts, which they describe as a \u201cpatchwork\u201d approach to AI regulation that hampers innovation. These groups are lobbying instead for a light touch set of federal laws to guide AI progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the President wants to win the AI race, the American people need to know that AI is safe and trustworthy," says Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. \u201cThis draft only undermines that trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
The order comes as Silicon Valley has been upping the pressure on proponents of state AI regulations. For example, a super PAC funded by Andreessen Horowitz, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman, and Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale recently announced a campaign against New York Assembly member Alex Bores, the author of a state AI safety bill.<\/p>\n
House Republicans have also renewed their effort to pass a blanket moratorium on states introducing laws regulating AI after an earlier version of the measure failed.<\/p>\n
The draft order gives the White House authority to challenge state AI laws that violate the Commerce Clause, a provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among the states. Andreessen Horowitz\u2019s head of AI policy and chief legal and policy officer published a letter in September arguing that several state AI laws raise concerns under the Commerce Clause.<\/p>\n
The order also instructs the Department of Commerce to craft guidelines that could make states ineligible for funding intended to expand access to high-speed internet. The Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program, which is run out of the Commerce Department, is valued at more than $42 billion. In addition, the order calls on White House senior AI advisors to draft legislation establishing a federal regulatory framework to govern AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth the law and the Constitution prevent the President from unilaterally attaching strings to federal funds, especially when the stakes are this high,\u201d says Venzke.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump posted a statement on Truth Social deriding the \u201coverregulation\u201d of AI and accusing some states of embedding \u201cDEI ideology into AI models, producing \u2018Woke AI.\u2019\u201d The draft order seems to tackle these allegations, calling on the Federal Trade Commission to declare that states cannot pass laws that manipulate AI outputs.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo win, American AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation. But State legislatures have introduced over 1,000 AI bills that threaten to undermine that innovative culture,\u201d the draft order reads. \u201cMy Administration will act to ensure that there is a minimally burdensome national standard \u2013 not 50 discordant State ones.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Save StorySave this storySave StorySave this story US President Donald Trump is considering signing an executive order that would seek to challenge state efforts to regulate artificial intelligence through lawsuits and the withholding federal funding, WIRED has learned. A draft of the order viewed by WIRED directs US Attorney General Pam Bondi to create an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}