President Trump is expected to release an AI “action plan” on Wednesday that reportedly outlines how the US can win in the global race to develop artificial intelligence by fostering a hands-off regulatory approach to the technology.
Media reports suggest the document will likely mark a split from Biden administration policies, which favored restrictions against exports of AI chips and steps to ensure AI was not used to spread misinformation.
That may include everything from faster permitting for building AI data centers to more use of AI at the Pentagon to identifying which federal regulations slow down AI and even withholding federal funding from states with tough AI laws already in place.
Trump is expected to discuss the topic during a speech at a Wednesday event titled “Winning the AI Race,” organized by White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks and his co-hosts on the “All-In” podcast.
The strategy announcement from the White House is the outcome of an order Trump signed in his first week that asked for an AI action plan to “sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.”
President Trump holds a signed executive order on AI in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 23. (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo) ·Reuters / Reuters
Some executive orders are also expected this week, according to Axios and the Wall Street Journal, that would promote the exports of chips and AI technology to countries considered friendly to the US.
There may be an order that targets “woke AI,” according to The Wall Street Journal. It would target AI developers that the administration believes create liberally biased algorithms and block them from serving as federal contractors.
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Two constitutional law scholars who talked with Yahoo Finance said it is doubtful the “woke AI” measure will withstand legal scrutiny.
“If you sanction software that is liberal, but not software that is conservative, the challenge will be that the executive order is content-based discrimination,” said UC San Francisco School of Law professor Rory Little.
President Trump with AI and crypto czar David Sacks at the White House Digital Assets Summit on March 7. (Allison Robbert for the Washington Post via Getty Images) ·The Washington Post via Getty Images
“I don’t even know how you tell if software is liberal or conservative,” Little said, adding that the First Amendment protects intellectual property as forms of speech that the government may not single out for punishment.
But the order’s constitutional viability may not matter in the short term for companies like Amazon (AMZN), Anthropic (ANTH.PVT), Google (GOOG), OpenAI (OPAI.PVT), Microsoft (MSFT), and Perplexity (PEAI.PVT), all of which are vying to supply AI systems to the government.
Even if the order is met with legal challenges, AI developers might not have time to wait out a court solution.
“A lot of people are trying to make deals with the Trump administration, so they view these executive orders not as law, but as the opening bid in a negotiation,” Little said.
“If you’re an AI company, like Google, you’re probably going to do your best to negotiate something that permits whatever you want to do to go forward,” he added. “And you could care less what atmospheric politics might look like, so long as you’re making money on your software.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Tuesday at a Federal Reserve banking conference in Washington, D.C., that his company now has lots of government work.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during a discussion at the Federal Reserve on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein) ·ASSOCIATED PRESS
“We are increasingly working with the government to roll out our services to lots of government employees,” Altman said.
If such an AI order is issued and then challenged, a court fight is likely to resemble those in multiple ongoing lawsuits against two other DEI-focused executive orders issued by Trump during his first days back in office.
Those earlier orders directed all federal contractors to certify that they do not operate DEI programs in violation of anti-discrimination laws. They also shuttered government offices and employment positions focused on DEI.
David Coale, a partner with the law firm Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann, said the executive orders get into an area called the “unconstitutional conditions” doctrine, which prohibits the government from conditioning a grant on the exercise of constitutional rights.
“This [type of] proposal goes too far,” Coale said, explaining that tying the eligibility to an AI’s liberal bias presents “serious First Amendment issues.”
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed.
