he AI regulatory landscape is getting stickier by the day.
The Trump Administration is reportedly considering an executive order that would preempt state laws seeking to govern AI, using lawsuits and withholding federal funding to do so, according to reports from multiple media outlets on Wednesday.
The order, which a White House official told Reuters was speculation until officially announced, would give Attorney General Pam Bondi the task of creating an “AI Litigation Task Force” focused solely on challenging state AI laws.
The order would also task the Department of Commerce to issue guidelines that would choke funding to those states, and calls on FCC chairman Brendan Carr and White House AI czar David Sacks to determine whether to adopt federal legislation related to AI disclosures that “preempts conflicting state laws”
- The order comes as more states seek to regulate AI. The document specifically called out California’s SB 53, which established safety and transparency requirements for AI model developers, as “a complex and burdensome disclosure and reporting law.”
- It’s not the only sign that some Republicans are seeking to limit state AI regulation, as House Republican leaders push to add provisions to the National Defense Authorization Act that would preempt state laws.
While the leaked executive order throws yet another bomb in the country’s legal AI battleground, it's too early to say what impacts it may have on policies, let alone companies themselves, Cobun Zweifel-Keegan, managing director of the International Association of Privacy Professionals DC, told The Deep View. Given how that model companies tend to have an international presence, state and federal compliance is “only one piece of this puzzle.”
“How strong an impact any such effort will have depends on how the Administration navigates a lot of tumultuous legal terrain,” said Zweifel-Keegan. “Overall, this is a battle between federal and state powers.”
However, the order only adds to the growing uncertainty of the current AI regulatory landscape, and not just in the US, Andrew Gamino-Cheong, CTO and cofounder of AI governance platform Trustible, told The Deep View.
The European Commission revealed plans this week to scale back the General Data Protection Regulation and water down the EU AI Act, its watershed privacy and AI laws. These moves signal“that there will be continued deregulatory efforts, at least in the 'western' world,” Gamino-Cheong said