President Donald Trump said on Monday he plans to ink an executive order this week that would limit states from enacting their own regulation of AI technology.
“I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week,” Trump posted on social media. “You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something.”
“There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI,” Trump said. “We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS…AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY!”
Trump’s statement comes days after an effort to preempt states from regulating AI was quashed in the Senate, as Congress couldn’t agree to insert the deeply unpopular proposal into a must-pass defense budget bill.
The fast pace of AI development and the lack of general consumer protections from the federal government has led many states to enact their own rules around the technology. California, for example, has the AI safety and transparency bill SB 53, while Tennessee’s ELVIS Act protects musicians and performers from unauthorized AI-generated deepfakes of their voices and likenesses.
Silicon Valley figures, including OpenAI President Greg Brockman and VC-turned-White House ‘AI czar’ David Sacks, have argued that such laws by states would create an unworkable patchwork of laws that would stifle innovation and threaten the U.S.’s lead against China in the race to develop AI technology.
Silicon Valley has a mighty lobbying arm that has blocked meaningful technology regulation for years, and proponents of states’ regulatory rights say there’s no reason to believe state AI laws could “destroy AI progress,” as VCs and tech companies claim.
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Trump’s executive order, a draft of which was leaked a couple of weeks ago, would create an “AI Litigation Task Force” to challenge state AI laws in court, direct agencies to evaluate state laws deemed “onerous,” and push the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission toward national standards that override state rules.
The Order would also give Sacks direct influence over AI policy, superseding the usual role of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, currently headed by Michael Kratsios.
Attempts to block states’ power to regulate AI have been deeply unpopular on both sides of Congress. Earlier this year, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a proposal that would place a 10-year moratorium on AI legislation into the federal budget bill, but it was rejected 99-1, in a rare moment of bipartisan agreement that tech companies shouldn’t operate without oversight.
And when Trump’s draft was leaked last month, several Republican politicians spoke out.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) posted on X: “States must retain the right to regulate and make laws on AI and anything else for the benefit of their state. Federalism must be preserved.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) posted late last week: “I oppose stripping Florida of our ability to legislate in the best interest of the people. A ten year AI moratorium bans state regulation of AI, which would prevent FL from enacting important protections for individuals, children and families.”
DeSantis has also called data centers as drains on power and water resources, as well as potential job killers.
“The rise of AI is the most significant economic and cultural shift occurring at the moment; denying the people the ability to channel these technologies in a productive way via self-government constitutes federal government overreach and lets technology companies run wild,” he said in a November X post.
Late last week, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) warned Trump against the EO, advising him to “leave AI to the states” to preserve federalism and allow local protections.
The desire to protect people from potential harms of AI technology is not unfounded. There have been several deaths by suicide following prolonged conversations with AI chatbots, and psychologists have recorded an uptick in cases of a condition they’re calling “AI psychosis.”
A bipartisan coalition of over 35 state attorneys general warned Congress last month that overriding state AI laws could have “disastrous consequences,” and more than 200 state lawmakers have issued an open letter opposing federal preemption, citing setbacks to progress on AI safety.
