(AFP) – President Donald Trump unveiled an aggressive, low-regulation strategy on Wednesday to boost big tech’s race to stay ahead of China on artificial intelligence and cement US dominance in the fast-expanding field. Trump’s 25-page “America’s AI Action Plan” outlines three aims: accelerating innovation, building infrastructure, and leading internationally on AI. The administration frames AI advancement as critical to maintaining economic and military supremacy. Environmental consequences are sidelined in the planning document.
“America is the country that started the AI race, and as president of the United States, I’m here today to declare that America is going to win it,” Trump told an AI event in Washington. “Winning this competition will be a test of our capacities unlike anything since the dawn of the space age,” he said, before signing several executive orders to give components of the strategy additional legal weight.
In its collection of more than 90 government proposals, Trump’s plan calls for sweeping deregulation, with the administration promising to “remove red tape and onerous regulation” that could hinder private sector AI development. In his wide-ranging speech, Trump insisted that “winning the AI race will demand a new spirit of patriotism and national loyalty in Silicon Valley and beyond.” Trump complained that for too long “many of our largest tech companies have reaped the blessings of American freedom while building their factories in China, hiring workers in India and slashing profits in Ireland.”
The plan also asked federal agencies to find ways to legally stop US states from implementing their own AI regulations and threatened to rescind federal aid to states that did so. “We have to have a single federal standard, not 50 different states, regulating this industry of the future,” Trump said. The American Civil Liberties Union warned this would thwart “initiatives to uphold civil rights and shield communities from biased AI systems in areas like employment, education, health care, and policing.”
The Trump action plan also calls for AI systems to be “free from ideological bias” and designed to pursue objective truth rather than what the administration calls “social engineering agendas,” such as diversity and inclusion. This criterion would apply to AI companies wanting to do business with the US government. Trump also called for AI development to be broadly immune from copyright claims — currently the subject of legal battles — saying it was a “common sense” approach. “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,” he said.
A major focus in the plan involves building AI infrastructure, including streamlined permitting for data centers and energy facilities that would overlook environmental concerns to build as swiftly as possible. The administration, which rejects international science showing a growing climate crisis, proposes creating new environmental review exemptions for data center construction and expanding access to federal lands for AI infrastructure development. Trump also called for the swift construction of coal and nuclear plants to help provide the energy needed to power the data centers.
The strategy also calls for efforts to “counter Chinese influence in international governance bodies” and strengthen export controls on advanced AI computing technology. At the same time, the strategy calls on the government to champion US technology in conquering overseas markets, a priority that was spelled out in an executive order. These plans will help “ensure America sets the technological gold standard worldwide, and that the world continues to run on American technology,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
Critics of the plan said the policies were a gift to US tech giants that were scaling back their goals for zero carbon emissions in order to meet the acute computing needs for AI. “Trump’s plan reads like a twisted Gilded Age playbook that rewards the rich while punishing everyday Americans and the environment,” said Jean Su of the Center for Biological Diversity.
© 2024 AFP
