The Trump administration wants to significantly expand the development and use of advanced artificial intelligence, including rolling back environmental rules to promote the creation of electricity-hungry data centers and punishing states that try to regulate AI on their own.
The administration’s plan of action, called “AI Race Wins: America’s AI Action Plan,” released Wednesday, is the result of a six-month study by high-tech advisors after President Donald Trump took over as President Joe Biden’s signature AI Guardrails. The plan is investing in taking a handoff approach to AI safeguards and encouraging more American workers to use AI in their daily lives.
“To win the AI race, the US must lead innovation, infrastructure and global partnerships,” AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks said in a statement. “At the same time, we must focus American workers and avoid using Orwell AI. This plan of action provides a roadmap for doing so.”
The Action Plan outlines three key pillars that accelerate AI innovation, build American AI infrastructure and gain international AI diplomacy and security leads.
The Trump administration has said that to accelerate US AI, it will need to “remove the deficit” on “troubling” AI regulations. The plan asks the Department of Science and Technology Policy about federal regulations that will hinder AI innovation, suggesting that the federal government will end funding states “with burdensome AI regulations.”
The plan says these actions should not hinder states’ ability to pass AI laws “not overly restrictive” despite failed attempts by Congressional Republicans to impose AI moratoriums on states.
The plan states that free speech should be prioritized in AI, and that the model should be trained to be the focus of the model’s output. The plan recommends that the Department of Commerce and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) correct the NIST AI risk management framework to eliminate misinformation, DEIs and references to climate change.
The Trump administration is also pushing for AI to be adopted more widely in the government’s role, manufacturing, science and the Department of Defense, suggesting an increase in funding and regulatory sandboxes (separate testing space for AI to be developed).
To support the proposed increase in AI use, the plan outlines a streamlined permitting process for data centers, including the reduction or removal of environmental regulations under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and more. It also proposes making federal land available for data center construction, and pushes that American products should be used to build infrastructure.
The action plan warns of potential exposure to cybersecurity risks and hostile threats, saying that the government must develop national security agencies and secure frontier AI systems and develop “AI calculation control enforcement” to ensure the security of AI systems. It encourages collaboration with “like-minded countries” working towards a valuable AI model, but says it will counter China’s influence.
“These clear policy goals set expectations for the federal government to ensure that the US sets gold standards for technology around the world, and the world continues to continue with American technology,” Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio said in a statement.
The policy goals outlined in the plan are divided in line with the deregulation attitudes Trump took during his campaign. The plan outlines the enormous energy and computing power needed to pave the way for the continuous free growth of American AI models and to keep up with those goals.
In his speech at the “AI Race Winning” summit on Wednesday evening, Trump called for a “single federal standard” regulating AI, rather than a state-by-state approach.
“Three or four states can’t hold you back. You can’t have a state with a high standard that will hold you high,” Trump said. “We need federal rules and regulations.”
The summit was held by the Hill & Valley Forum, a group of lawmakers and venture capitalists, and the All In Podcast, co-hosted by AI Czar Sacks.
In addition to discussing AI Action Plans, Trump will sign an executive order to quickly track data center permits, expanding AI exports such as chips, software and data storage, and banning the federal government from procuring AI with a “partizan bias or ideological agenda.”
He said the US needs to stay ahead of the global AI race, saying the technology brings “not only bad, but good potential,” but that wasn’t enough reason to “retreat” from technological advancements. The United States is entering a “golden age,” he said in his speech.
“It’s driven by American energy. It operates on American technology, improved by American artificial intelligence, making America richer, more powerful, more powerful than ever,” Trump said.
In his address, Trump spoke about his evolving relationship with the technology CEO, calling for Amazon, Google and Microsoft by investing $320 billion in data centers and AI infrastructure this year.
“I didn’t like them that much. I wouldn’t say I was excited about them when I was running, but I learned about them and fell in love,” Trump said. “And I think they fell in love with me, but I think they liked my policy.
Openai CEO Sam Altman, one of the high-tech giants to thrive under the proposed policy, spoke on Tuesday about the productivity and innovation possibilities that AI has unlocked. The growth of AI over the past five years has even been amazed by him, Altman said. But it also poses very real risks, he said, and refers to emotional attachment and reliance on AI and foreign risks.
“If no one has any malicious intentions, society is just heading in a kind of strange direction,” Altman said.
This story was first published in Washington State Standard. Read the original here.
