President Donald Trump confirmed Dec. 8 his plan to prevent AI from being controlled by whichever state has the strictest woke regulations.
Trump posted an update on Truth Social Monday, addressing the debate on whether the federal government or state governments should be primarily responsible for regulating AI and monitoring its anti-free speech applications.“There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI,” Trump wrote, favoring federal regulations. He explained, “You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!”
The president based his argument on the advancement of AI in hostile countries. “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 posited in his Truth Social post. “THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT ABOUT THIS! AI WILL BE DESTROYED IN ITS INFANCY! I will be doing a ONE RULE Executive Order this week.”
MRC Vice President for Free Speech Dan Schneider explained the rationale behind Trump’s “One Rulebook” policy. “The Constitution's ‘commerce clause’ was intended for big, national economic priorities, to prevent one state from putting up roadblocks that would harm the rest of the country,” he said. “We can’t have California dictating AI policy for the other 49 states. Let California determine its own zoning laws, minimum wage requirements, and how many free needles it gives to drug users. But don’t let the wackos in Sacramento turn AI into a device to control us.”
Trump’s new announcement comes amid controversy within his own party as some Republican governors argue that restricting states from protecting their citizens and constitutional rights by regulating AI could be a disaster, allowing future Democrat administrations too much control.
Schneider acknowledged the conflicting views. “I understand that some rational people fear that if the crazies regain control of the White House, they will once again try to turn AI into a weapon,” he said. “But that is what Gavin Newsom and JB Pritzker are already trying to do. We have just a few years to get this right. Fortunately, we have an administration with the right priorities: beating China and protecting our rights.”
As MRC Free Speech America Director Michael Morris noted in November, another major issue for AI going forward is that its designers are launching a new era of censorship and bias. For instance, AI algorithms push the exact same legacy media sources that seven in ten US adults say they mistrust. News aggregators like Google News, MSN, AOL News and Yahoo! News all overwhelmingly promote leftist media. MRC found at the beginning of December that Google News entirely suppressed stories about Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) COVID-era, fraud-related mismanagement scandal.
Although there are concerns, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis notably arguing that free speech is at risk without state regulation, the Trump administration has thus far had an America first, pro-free speech track record when it comes to AI. The president issued an executive order on Jan. 23, “eliminating harmful Biden Administration AI policies and enhancing America’s global AI dominance,” aimed at increasing America’s global dominance. In April, Trump’s executive order, “Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education For American Youth,” described initiatives to incorporate AI into K-12 education and both apprenticeships and industry partnerships. In July, Trump’s AI Action Plan laid out his goals for increasing AI infrastructure and combating wokeness in AI.
Most recently, in November, the Trump administration launched the Genesis Mission “to unleash a new age of AI‑accelerated innovation and discovery that can solve the most challenging problems of this century” by building an integrated AI platform for federal datasets.
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