Trump’s AI Action Plan Calls for Deregulation, Chatbot Free Speech – PYMNTS.com
Highlights
Trump’s AI Action Plan does not call for new federal AI regulation, instead prioritizing deregulation.
The plan calls for expanded export controls to prevent adversaries from accessing U.S. AI technologies, while offering full AI tech stacks to allies that join “America’s AI Alliance.”
The administration requires AI systems like chatbots be built to have “free speech” that is without “ideological bias.”
The White House on Wednesday (July 23) released a policy roadmap that outlines President Trump’s push to keep America in the lead in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race by focusing on deregulation, building AI infrastructure, expanding export controls and giving chatbots free speech.
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“America’s AI Action Plan” follows Trump’s executive order in January that directed federal agencies to dismantle AI regulations put in place by the Biden administration, which focused on oversight and risk mitigation. Trump favors accelerating AI development to “retain global leadership.”
“As our global competitors race to exploit these technologies, it is a national security imperative for the United States to achieve and maintain unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance,” Trump said in the opening page of the AI action plan.
The action plan is organized into three pillars: accelerating innovation, building infrastructure, and leading in international diplomacy and security. Across all three areas, the administration sought to loosen regulatory constraints, expand AI chip manufacturing capacity and ensure allied nations comply with U.S. tech standards.
For AI developers, the administration mandated that their AI systems “be built from the ground up” with “freedom of speech” and adhere to American values instead of shaped by “ideological bias.”
The Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is directed to revise its AI risk management framework to “eliminate references to misinformation, diversity, equity and inclusion, and climate change.”
The federal government will only contract with AI developers “who ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias.”
Read more: Nvidia Takes $4.5B Inventory Charge Due to Chip Trade Policy
Acknowledging that stringent export controls of AI technology could lead other nations to buy the tech of adversarial countries, the Trump administration said it was willing to export the country’s full AI tech stack, including hardware, software, models, applications and tech standards.
But countries must join “America’s AI Alliance,” according to the report. “A failure to meet this demand would be an unforced error, causing these countries to turn to our rivals,” the Trump administration warned.
The action plan also sought to creatively control exports so they don’t fall into the hands of adversaries. One way is to use location verification features on advanced AI chips; another is to step up monitoring of sales. The plan also called for expanding export controls to cover semiconductor manufacturing component sub-systems, not just major systems.
The U.S. must prevent adversaries from “free-riding on our innovation and investment,” the authors of the report wrote.
The AI plan comes as governments worldwide are setting their own AI regulations. The European Union passed the first comprehensive set of AI laws in the EU AI Act, which took effect starting this year. The U.S. does not have federal AI laws — and the AI plan does not call for them.
Moreover, the plan also sought to curb state AI laws. “The federal government should not allow AI-related federal funding to be directed toward states with burdensome AI regulations that waste these funds.”
Earlier this month, the Senate rejected a 10-year ban on state AI laws that was originally part of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” The president signed the bill into law on July 4, without the ban in place.
See also: AI Regulations Bring Deluge of Lobbying Efforts to DC
The plan comes at a critical juncture in AI. “Whoever has the largest AI ecosystem will set global AI standards and reap broad economic and military benefits,” according to the report. “Just like we won the space race, it is imperative that the United States and its allies win this race.”
The plan calls for an accelerated buildout of AI infrastructure, including streamlined permitting for data centers, chip manufacturing and energy projects; modernization of the U.S. electric grid to support energy-intensive AI workloads; and expanded use of federal lands for development. It also proposes training a skilled workforce in the trades.
AI data centers have been on Trump’s radar. In January, Trump unveiled ‘Stargate,’ a $500 billion plan to build AI data centers spearheaded by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle and MGX. Stargate reportedly is now dialing back its plans due to disagreements over where to build these plants.
Critics of AI data centers point to their increased energy use due to higher cooling needs as a result of AI workloads’ intense computations. The AI action plan dismissed these concerns, framing infrastructure as essential to maintaining U.S. AI dominance. The plan will “reject radical climate dogma and bureaucratic red tape” to accelerate construction.
The administration also outlines a broad vision for AI-enabled scientific progress, calling for investment in “automated cloud-enabled labs,” the creation of national datasets and new research programs to advance AI interpretability, robustness and control.
To prepare the U.S. workforce, the Department of Labor and the Department of Education and others will work together to promote AI skill development through technical education, apprenticeships and retraining programs. “AI will improve the lives of Americans by complementing their work – not replacing it,” the plan stated.
The administration also called for government-led evaluations of frontier models for risks such as chemical, biological or cyber misuse and warned that adversaries’ AI may have “backdoors” and exhibit “other malicious behavior” to harm the U.S.
“This Action Plan sets forth clear policy goals for near-term execution by the federal government,” the report said. “The AI race is America’s to win.”
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