President-elect Donald Trump is expected to reverse President Biden’s artificial intelligence agenda by emphasizing freedom for the booming technology rather than safety.
Mr. Biden signed an executive order last year to create the AI Safety Institute and recently issued guidance to shape national security officials’ adoption of the technology. The president’s AI policy prioritizes safety and reining in potential abuses.
For nearly a year, Mr. Trump has pledged to revoke Mr. Biden’s AI executive order. He favors an AI policy that does not restrict expression or market innovation.
“When I’m reelected, I will cancel Biden’s artificial intelligence executive order and ban the use of AI to censor the speech of American citizens on Day One,” Mr. Trump said at a December rally in Iowa.
In July, the Republican Party enshrined Mr. Trump’s AI agenda in its platform to signal the direction of a Republican-led Congress next year.
“We will repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology,” the platform said. “In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing.”
R Street Institute senior fellow Adam Thierer said he fully expects Mr. Trump to repeal and replace Mr. Biden’s AI executive order.
Mr. Thierer, who researches technology and innovation at the free market think tank, said he thinks Mr. Trump will restrain federal agencies’ AI-related regulations.
“I also expect there to be an even stronger focus in the new administration on how to extend America’s AI might as a geopolitical technological advantage over China,” Mr. Thierer said in an email. “Another key thing to watch will be the likely connection between AI policy and energy policy priorities, with Trump looking to capitalize on his party platform’s promise to boost ‘reliable and abundant low-cost energy’ options, which are vital to meeting AI’s growing energy demands.”
Mr. Thierer anticipates resistance from Republicans on “woke AI,” which he said prioritizes diversity, equity and inclusion in technology policy.
Fueling the shift is Elon Musk, the leading technologist leveraging AI who opposes woke policies aligned with the political left. Mr. Musk is a close adviser to the president-elect.
Mr. Trump has said Mr. Musk will help lead an effort on government efficiency, but Americans for Responsible Innovation, co-founded by former Democratic Rep. Brad Carson, wants Mr. Musk to be appointed as the president’s special adviser on AI. The group is gathering signatures to support Mr. Musk’s advisory position.
Satya Thallam, senior vice president of government affairs at Americans for Responsible Innovation, said Mr. Musk knows how to develop safe AI.
“There’s no one better positioned to help the Trump administration navigate this new technology,” Mr. Thallam said. “This is someone who has both pioneered AI advancement and consistently sounded the alarm about AI’s potential risks.”
Democrats on Capitol Hill are not giving up on codifying AI rules into law. Sen. John Hickenlooper, Colorado Democrat, said Wednesday that he wants requirements to label AI-generated content and expose deepfakes.
“If it’s an audio, you’d have a little bell, a little chime can go off, but some standard approach that we make transparent what is AI and what is not,” he said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event.
Sens. Brian Schatz, Hawaii Democrat, and John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican, introduced legislation last year to label AI-made content, but the approach has stalled over concerns about practicality and free speech.
“If you’re talking about moving in a direction of setting up a tool that rings a bell every time something happens that’s invalid or somebody says something invalid, in Congress, all we’d hear is bells ringing,” Rep. Garret Graves, Louisiana Republican, told Mr. Hickenlooper.
Mr. Thierer said it is unclear how the Trump team views “open source AI,” the status of state-level AI regulations that clash with federal policies, and AI-related industrial policy proposals.
Mr. Trump may not discard every AI policy from the Biden administration. John Beieler, the U.S. intelligence community’s AI chief, told The Washington Times in July that the spy agencies were looking to standardize approaches that would hold up under the next administration.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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