Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a bigger policy priority as the United States faces off against China and other nations in the race for technological supremacy in this crucial sector. Many are wondering what sort of AI governance vision former President Donald Trump might adopt if he wins in November. His tenure in the White House and some recent comments he has made offer a glimpse of what might be coming if he is reelected.
If Trump’s time in office and some recent comments are any guide, he will likely adopt a more light-touch approach to AI policy than what the Biden administration has pursued over the past four years. Trump’s policies would also likely stand in stark contrast with Vice President Kamala Harris’s approach to AI issues.
The Trump administration said little about AI policy during its early years in office, and mostly adopted the same rhetoric and policies first laid out by the Obama administration. These efforts were largely promotional in character, looking to advance America’s AI capabilities through coordinated federal R&D efforts.
Later, the Trump administration would have more to say about the regulatory side of things. Trump’s Chief Technology Officer argued that the administration’s goals were to “limit regulatory overreach” and “promote a light-touch approach.” In a 2020 report, the Trump administration said America’s “market-oriented approach will allow us to prevail against state-directed models that produce waste and disincentivize innovation.”
In February 2019, Trump signed Executive Order (EO) 13859 on “Maintaining American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” which launched the “American AI Initiative,” to “focus the resources of the Federal government to develop AI in order to increase our Nation’s prosperity, enhance our national and economic security, and improve quality of life for the American people.” The EO also looked to “reduce barriers to the use of AI technologies in order to promote their innovative application while protecting civil liberties, privacy, American values, and United States economic and national security.”
Beyond more federal R&D investments, the EO also instructed the Office of Management and Budget to work with other executive offices to develop a set of principles for federal agencies to follow when considering the development of regulatory and non-regulatory approaches for AI. That resulted in the January 2020 memorandum to heads of federal departments providing “Guidance for Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Applications.”
This memorandum reiterated the Trump administration’s light-touch approach to AI policy, encouraging agencies to “consider ways to reduce barriers to the development and adoption of AI technologies” and “avoid regulatory or non-regulatory actions that needlessly hamper AI innovation and growth.” “Agencies must avoid a precautionary approach that holds AI systems to such an impossibly high standard that society cannot enjoy their benefits,” the memo noted, while also stressing that they should look ways to foster AI innovation and growth “through forbearing from new regulations” where appropriate and considering how address “inconsistent, burdensome, and duplicative” AI related laws promulgated by states and localities. It also stressed the need for agencies to be open to “non-regulatory approaches to AI” policy that include sector-specific policy guidances, voluntary frameworks and standards, and pilot programs and experiments.
In a recent podcast interview, Trump offered somewhat contradictory thoughts on the future of AI, saying that he found the use of AI-created deepfakes to be “alarming,” but that AI represented an important “superpower” and that “we have to take the lead over China” as the “primary threat” on this front. J.D. Vance, Trump’s pick for vice president, has also worried about AI deepfakes but also said he was concerned about “preemptive over-regulation attempts that would frankly entrench the tech incumbents that we already have and make it actually harder for new entrants to create the innovation,” who will “power the next generation of American growth and American job creation.”
The GOP’s latest party platform included a small section on innovation policy and said they will “repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology. In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing.” Trump allies are rumored to be drafting a new EO that proposes “Manhattan Projects” to support high-tech military technology and which would also review “unnecessary and burdensome regulations.”
Trump’s AI policy approach contrasts starkly with the Biden administration. Along with Vice President Harris, who served as the administration’s informal “AI czar,” the Biden White House actively pushed more government involvement in AI markets to counter supposed algorithmic harms. Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, would likely pursue an AI policy agenda that extends the approach laid out in the Biden administration’s October 2022 “AI Bill of Rights,” which focused mostly on fears about algorithmic systems as being “unsafe, ineffective, or biased” and “deeply harmful.”
This suggests a Harris administration would adopt a more active and interventionist approach to AI regulation, while another Trump administration would take a less regulatory, wait-and-see approach to AI governance. However, Trump and many Republicans have also been very critical of “Big Tech,” and even advocated regulation of social media platforms on the grounds that their algorithms are biased against them. It remains to be seen how this AI policy tension plays out if Trump reclaims the White House this November.
* Adam Thierer is Analyst covering the intersection of emerging tech & public policy. Specializes in innovation & tech governance. https://www.rstreet.org/people/adam-thierer
Source: Medium
