Trump: "AI Is Pure Genius"
America's AI Action Plan and the Trump Administration's approach to AI governance | Edition #220
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Trump: "AI Is Pure Genius"
This week, the White House released the long-awaited “America's AI Action Plan,” detailing the current administration's approach to AI policy and governance.
In today's edition, I comment on the 23-page plan and Trump's live announcement, focusing on what is said between the lines and what the future of AI governance in the U.S. might look like.
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To contextualize, the AI Action Plan is the concretization of the Executive Order “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI,” from January 23rd. That order directed the development of a plan to “sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security” within 180 days.
The primary goal of America's AI Action Plan is to pave the way for the U.S. to win the AI race and achieve global dominance in AI.
Here's a quick quote that helps us understand what the White House has in mind with this plan:
“The U.S. needs to innovate faster and more comprehensively than our competitors in the development and distribution of new AI technology across every field, and dismantle unnecessary regulatory barriers that hinder the private sector in doing so.”
Supporting the AI Action Plan, three additional Executive Orders on AI were published, which give us an idea of the first steps in concretizing the plan:
Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government - link
Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack - link
Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure - link
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Before I proceed with the specific sections of the AI Action Plan, I want to comment on some highlights from Trump's live announcement, which help us better understand the current administration's views (and Trump’s personal opinions) on AI governance.
One of the focuses of his speech was aggressive deregulation. He started describing AI as “pure genius” and said, “we have to grow that baby and let that baby strive (…) we can't stop it with stupid rules.”
He mentioned copyright rules and dismissed concerns about the lack of consent and compensation for content creators as incompatible with the U.S. ambitions in the AI race (following Jack Dorsey's and Elon Musk's lead):
“(…) you can't be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book, or anything else that you've read or studied you're supposed to pay for. I read a book, am I supposed to pay somebody? We can't do it because it's not doable”
At the core of the AI Action Plan is winning the AI race, especially the direct competition with China, and achieving global dominance in AI. In his speech, Trump explicitly signaled that his administration will:
“use every tool at our disposal to ensure the U.S. can build and maintain the largest, most powerful, and most advanced AI infrastructure on the planet.”
Trump also signaled the U.S. approach to the new AI nationalism, a topic I have been covering in this newsletter, with examples including Switzerland, Germany, the UK, Singapore, China, and more:
“winning the AI race will demand a new spirit of patriotism and national loyalty in Silicon Valley and beyond it”
Now let's move to the plan itself: