President Trump said in a social media post Monday that he will issue an executive order this week to curb state laws on artificial intelligence, the latest win for a tech industry lobbying for deregulation.
Mr. Trump said he would create a federal order for rules and approvals for A.I. to eliminate a patchwork of state laws that have emerged in recent years.
“We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS,” he said on Truth Social.
While Mr. Trump did not offer details, a draft executive order that circulated last month directed the U.S. Attorney General to sue states to overturn A.I. laws. Federal regulators were also directed to withhold broadband grants and other funding to states with A.I. laws.
Efforts by the White House to block state laws could be challenged in court. Some legal experts and opponents of an A.I. moratorium argue that the president doesn’t have the legal authority to intervene in state legislation.
“The president cannot pre-empt state laws through an executive order, full stop,” said Travis Hall, the director for state engagement at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a think tank that promotes tech policy. “Pre-emption is a question for Congress, which they have considered and rejected, and should continue to reject.”
During his second term, Mr. Trump has issued executive orders that unwound Biden-era rules for government safety standards and eliminated A.I. export restrictions.
In a vacuum of federal regulation, states have enacted laws that force A.I. companies to test their models for safety, bolster privacy protections for consumers and ban deep fakes that could disrupt elections. This year, all 50 states and territories introduced A.I. legislation and 38 states adopted about 100 laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Lawmakers have previously tried to pass a moratorium on state A.I. laws, but the effort failed after fierce opposition by consumer and child safety groups. They argued that by eliminating state laws, there would effectively be no guardrails for A.I.
Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and companies like OpenAI have aggressively lobbied federal regulators and the White House to block the state laws, saying their companies are challenged by the patchwork of state regulations.
The laws are hardest on start-ups and entrepreneurs, Andreessen Horowitz has argued. “That imbalance threatens the competitive dynamism that is so important to American innovation,” the company has said.
Cecilia Kang reports on technology and regulatory policy for The Times from Washington. She has written about technology for over two decades.
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