Trump To Sign EO Preventing State-Level AI Regulation
AI has rapidly become one of the more concerning issues facing American society. One would think that having witnessed the damage social media has done to people’s mental health would spur President Donald Trump and congressional lawmakers to implement meaningful regulation for the burgeoning technology, but instead, the opposite has occurred. President Trump announced on Monday that he intends to sign an executive order preventing states from creating their own AI regulations.
According to CNN, Trump took to Truth Social to explain why he’s decided to sign the order that hinders states from crafting AI regulations. “There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “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.”
“THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT ABOUT THIS! AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY! I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week,” Trump added. “You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!”
It just never fails to embarrass me that America elected a grown-ass man who regularly tweets in all caps.
The announcement has received pushback from tech safety advocates, academics, and state legislators on both sides. Considering that the GOP likes to cosplay as the party of small government, this move has received significant criticism from Republican leaders. Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has been critical of the order since a draft of it was leaked last month. DeSantis called the order an example of “federal government overreach.”
“Stripping states of jurisdiction to regulate AI is a subsidy to Big Tech and will prevent states from protecting against online censorship of political speech, predatory applications that target children, violations of intellectual property rights, and data center intrusions on power/water resources,” DeSantis added.
Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of The Tech Oversight Project, issued a statement critical of the draft order last month. “We’re in a fight to determine who will benefit from AI: Big Tech CEOs or the American people,” Haworth wrote. “We cannot afford to spend the next decade with Big Tech in the driver’s seat, steering us toward massive job losses, surveillance pricing algorithms that jack up the cost of living, and data centers that are skyrocketing home energy bills.”
While AI may one day provide meaningful benefits to society, so far it’s been a net negative. AI data centers have driven up energy costs nationwide, with the light and sound pollution from the centers lowering residents’ quality of life. Not to mention the actual environmental pollution emitted from the centers is exacerbating respiratory ailments and chronic illnesses in the often predominantly Black, lower-income neighborhoods they’ve been built in.
AI is already leading to job losses at a time when the economy is only worsening for those who aren’t already wealthy. Perhaps most alarming is the rate of youth suicides that have come at the encouragement of AI chatbots.
So, at a time when we’re already seeing and living through the worst effects of AI, it’s baffling that the Trump administration has made the move to limit regulation further. Especially since China, the main competitor in the field, has some of the strictest AI regulations in the world and managed to deliver AI alternatives like DeepSeek that cost a fraction of what the U.S. has spent.
Of course, Trump has never truly cared about what’s best for the American people. His only concern appears to be ensuring his rich buddies get richer. If the people have to pay the price, so be it.
SEE ALSO:
How Trump’s AI Use Fuels Disinformation And Political Hate
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