Donald Trump is set to return to the White House following his victory in the 2024 US presidential election. There is widespread worry that one of his first actions in office could be the repeal of President Joe Biden’s AI safeguards, potentially reshaping the federal approach to artificial intelligence oversight.
Biden’s AI Executive Order, delivered in October 2023, aimed to regulate AI development and protect against threats to privacy, civil rights, and national security. It created the US AI Safety Institute (AISI), part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Amongst other things, the AISI mandated that tech companies submit reports on their use of AI, such as training processes, safety protocols, and vulnerability assessments.
Critics of Biden’s regulations include prominent Trump supporters in Congress. Representative Nancy Mace, a Republican representing South Carolina, warned that such oversight might suppress AI innovation. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, meanwhile, claimed Biden’s AI safety standards ran in opposition to free speech, decrying what he called NIST’s “woke AI ‘safety’ standards”. Cruz claimed the AI regulations amounted to a “plan to control speech” based on “amorphous” social harms.
Cruz said:
With the emergence of AI as the latest technology that will have an enormous impact on speech, including the spread of opinions and content disfavored by the censorious Left, the administration is seeking to restrict AI development through regulatory fiat. And in doing so, it is citing the same amorphous ‘harms’ as it did to justify social media censorship…
Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur who emerged as a key Trump ally during the election, has been vocal in his criticism of “woke” AI, such as the “politically correct” ChatGPT. Musk himself runs xAI, a direct competitor to ChatGPT.
At the Future Investment Initiative, an event backed by the Saudi Arabian government held in October this year, Musk was open about his concerns during a session named Special Discussion on The Future of AI:
A lot of the AIs that are being trained in the San Francisco Bay Area, they take on the philosophy of people around them. So you have a woke, nihilistic—in my opinion—philosophy that is being built into these AIs.
Will Trump dismantle Biden AI safeguards?
As Trump prepares to take office, and with key Trump allies voicing various levels of dissatisfaction with Biden’s AI safeguards, the future of the AISI is uncertain.
However, Trump himself has said little about AI. He has not publicly commented on Biden’s AI safeguards, nor the AISI itself. The future of Biden’s AI Executive Order may depend on the degree of sway Trump’s key allies have over the incoming president.
The possibility has been raised that Biden’s executive order may, instead, be replaced. According to the Washington Post, employees of the America First Policy institute drafted an executive order in July 2024 that would establish a framework known as ‘Make America First in AI’. The GOP platform at the time was described as “[including] repealing the Biden AI executive order, which some tech investors and start-ups have said creates a regulatory burden that stifles innovation”.
The GOP’s platform read:
We will repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Left-wing ideas on the development of this technology. In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing.
With AI safeguards hanging in the balance, all eyes will be on Trump’s next steps in shaping the future of artificial intelligence.
