Trump’s executive order limits state regulations of artificial intelligence

Geoff Bennett:

President Trump late yesterday signed an executive order blocking states from enforcing their own laws regulating artificial intelligence.

Specifically, it gives the Justice Department authority to block state laws if they do not support — quote — "global dominance of A.I." It would also allow the federal government to withhold funding for broadband and other projects.

The directive marks a big win for tech giants, but will likely be challenged in the courts. During the Oval Office signing yesterday, the president's A.I. and crypto czar, David Sacks, an investor in multiple A.I.-related companies, argued that allowing states to set their own rules poses significant risks.

David Sacks, White House A.I. and Crypto Czar: Over 100 of them have already passed; 25 percent of them are in California, New York and Illinois. You have got 50 states running in 50 different directions. It just doesn't make sense. We're creating a confusing patchwork of regulation. What we need is a single federal standard.

Geoff Bennett:

For more, we're joined by tech journalist Jacob Ward, founder of The Rip Current.

Jacob, welcome back to the "News Hour."

Jacob Ward, Founder, The Rip Current:

Thanks, Geoff. Great to be here.

Geoff Bennett:

So President Trump in this executive order says he wants a minimally burdensome national standard. The White House argues that tech companies can't reasonably be expected to comply with potentially 50 different sets of state laws.

Break down that argument for us.

Jacob Ward:

Well, the argument, right, has these two sides.

One is that we need some sort of comprehensive federal regulation for there to be, as President Trump's executive order describes it, supremacy when it comes to the United States. There is some real rah-rah football team backer kind of language in this executive order that we need to win.

It mentions adversaries, which, of course, means China. And so the argument here is that we need to streamline the development of this industry so that we can be the global winner on it. The other side of the argument, of course, is that the states have always been the laboratory of democracy. They are the place where we figure out what regulations work and what don't.

And, right now, more than 50 — all 50 states plus Puerto Rico have passed an A.I. regulation of some form. You have got Colorado banning algorithmic discrimination. You have got Illinois trying to wipe out A.I. therapy.

And so when it comes to the states' arguments, they say, essentially, we need to figure out how to regulate this stuff. And the backdrop of all of this, right, Geoff, is that there is no federal regulation around this stuff at all. We're almost — we're 20-plus years into the social media revolution. We still don't have a data privacy law that touches that, much less anything that regulates A.I. whatsoever.

There is some new legislation possibly coming up. But, at the moment, there's nothing there. So you can't really blame the states for feeling they have to get involved. And President Trump has now moved to try to get out in front of that.

Geoff Bennett:

If this order survives legal challenges, what are the real-world consequences? What protections potentially could be lost?

Jacob Ward:

Well, you should sort of think of the promises, the marketing language of these companies almost in reverse.

Let's say they get their way and these technologies make their way into every corner of our life. We know already that algorithmic systems are determining who gets a job, who gets a loan, who gets bail. But we also know that increasingly people are forming deep personal attachments to this stuff.

One in five teenagers report having a deep emotional connection to a chatbot of some form. And so we know that there is — both anecdotally and quantitatively, we know that there is an enormous effect being had on humans of all ages and all backgrounds across the United States.

And so the attitude of the technology industry has always been, let us innovate and we will figure it out later. And it seems as if the Trump administration has come along and bought that argument, the idea that we should be able to experiment in the wild on live subjects in a way that no university would ever permit.

But, as a result, of course, we are also the envy of the world when it comes to the creation of these foundational models. And it could be that keeping that dominance going will keep us on top as a superpower. But this — the fact of the matter is, we really — if these companies are to be believed, this stuff is about to be in every corner of our lives.

And I don't think any of us would imagine a world in which no regulation will touch it. And, at the moment, that's the case.

Geoff Bennett:

But are we the envy of the world when it comes to A.I. in the absence of regulation? Is there a case to be made that regulation really stifles innovation?

Jacob Ward:

Well, the adversary that the executive order mentions is, of course, China.

And the argument that a lot of pro-industry folks make is that China only has a single regulatory body, and that is the federal government. There is no patchwork of state law in China. But the other thing to consider is that you have a lot of regulations in China. China is not a wide-open, Wild West-style environment.

You have to be able to show that your A.I. model — it has to show its work. It has to show that it is in compliance with communist teachings. There are — CEOs are personally liable if their A.I. product is misused in some way. So there is enormous, and I would argue, under the Trump definition, very onerous regulation in China.

And yet they are moving as fast as they are. I think the thing that we could say about this is that the need currently to comply with this long laundry list of various patchwork-style laws across the country really does create an advantage for big companies, who can afford big compliance teams, and a disadvantage for small start-ups, who don't know how to do that.

But, increasingly, in the age of A.I., it's not that hard to come up with a checklist that satisfies all the state requirements. And if we see the White House swing the other way and the legislature, the Senate and the House, swing the other way in the next few years, we could very easily see a federal set of federal regulations just as long as the laundry list we currently have from state law.

Geoff Bennett:

I was going to ask you that because there is a role for Congress to play here, even though we know that Congress has abdicated so much of its authority to the executive.

We mentioned that this is headed for the courts. When these state attorneys general sue, when they challenge this executive order, on what grounds might they file these cases?

Jacob Ward:

Well, the grounds that the executive order talks about has to do with the — a state basically interfering with commerce nationally. You're not supposed to be able to blockade your state if you are the one national source of, I don't know, timber. I'm making this up. But you know what I mean?

You're not allowed to sort of hold back the business of the nation as a state. And so that seems to be the argument here. I think the other side of the argument is, well, you should probably — you need to safeguard our kids, our jobs, our industries against the encroachment of this technology and some of the damage that we have seen, and without any kind of federal regulation on that stuff, then you should leave us alone, will probably be the states' argument here.

You know, this really — what this I think does fundamentally is bring up a really big constitutional question that's been brewing for a long time, but it's about to get really white hot in this case. But the other thing I would also point out to you, Geoff, just as a piece of context, is, this is not a thing the voters care about.

Only big companies really care about this China question and about this regulation question. Big polls of every kind of adult voters show that the vast majority of them want regulation of A.I. and do not care if it slows it down. And so this is definitely not a voter response that we're seeing in this executive order.

Geoff Bennett:

Jacob Ward, always great to speak with you, founder of The Rip Current.

Thanks again for being with us.

Jacob Ward:

Thanks, Geoff.