Will Trump Embrace the AI Future or Succumb to His Protectionist Impulses?
President Donald Trump’s deregulatory impulses could be a boon to the AI industry, but his hostility to free trade threatens to undermine its progress. Policies from the first Trump administration and caustic campaign rhetoric caution against unqualified optimism.
Former President Joe Biden’s October 2023 Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence invoked the Defense Production Act, requiring companies to report their models to the federal government—a move Neil Chilson, head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute, sees as emblematic of the Biden administration’s emphasis on AI’s potential risks over its benefits. Marc Scribner, senior policy analyst at Reason Foundation (the nonprofit that publishes Reason), predicts Trump will revoke this executive order and move away from Biden’s precautionary approach to federal AI regulation.
This light-touch approach was on display in a February 2019 Trump executive order, which aimed “to sustain and enhance the scientific, technological, and economic leadership position of the United States in AI.” In November 2020, the Office of Management and Budget published a memorandum that clarified that “agencies must avoid a precautionary approach that holds AI systems to an impossibly high standard.” Chilson says that the previous Trump
Article from Reason.com
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