President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at challenging state-level artificial intelligence legislation that the administration considers “excessive.”
Trump’s order was long anticipated and is a win for tech industry leaders who have been advocating for light regulation from states and the federal government. The president teased signing one last month, but backed down after Republican congressional leaders reportedly asked him to give them more time to work out legislation addressing AI.
“We’re leading China by a lot, China knows that, and not doing this would be the greatest gift to China … that China has ever received,” Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office.
Trump told reporters that the U.S. needs to be “very careful” not to overregulate AI in its “infancy,” arguing it would threaten innovation and economic development.
“We also know that a big part of our economy, it could be 50, 60% of our economy … is AI and AI-based. We have trillions of dollars in construction going on, and this construction would stop, or a lot of it would be altered,” Trump told reporters. Over the past year, tech giants have invested hundreds of billions on data centers needed for AI development.
Trump was joined in the Oval Office by Sen. Ted Cruz, one of the biggest proponents for blocking states from regulating AI.
This order — which is almost certainly going to be challenged in courts by states like California, New York and Florida that have been attempting to regulate AI — directs Congress to create a federal framework for AI legislation while directing the administration to challenge “onerous” and “excessive” state laws, David Sacks, Trump’s main AI adviser said in the Oval Office.
On Monday, Trump said on Truth Social that he intended to sign this executive order weeks after Republican House leadership reportedly asked him not to get involved. Trump said the U.S. lead on AI “won’t last long” if every state is “involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS.”
This is a big win for major AI corporations like OpenAI, which have argued that states are overregulating AI development. The AI industry has heavily lobbied Congress to pause state-level AI legislation and has created Super PACs to challenge AI skeptics in Congress — so far, most of these efforts to stop state legislatures have been successful.
Editor’s Note: This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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