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Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump rescinded a slew of executive orders from former President Joe Biden within hours of taking office on Monday, including one intended to ensure safe, secure, and trustworthy AI. This isn't exactly a surprise, however, as Trump made rolling back AI regulation part of his campaign.
The Biden Order, called the "Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence," was published in October 2023. It acknowledged that AI presents both "promise and peril" for society, with the potential to "exacerbate societal harms such as fraud, discrimination, bias," disinformation, and other concerns.
The action prioritized American workers and demanded that no workers or jobs be harmed because of AI. It also included protections to promote a fair and open AI marketplace, protect individuals' personal information in the AI era, and other measures to promote equitable AI.
With Trump taking over the whitehouse.gov URL, the link to Biden's EO now gives an error. His admin's website has been archived at bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov.
Trump's announcement rescinding the AI order came alongside about 75 other rescinded orders and actions, including killing actions made as recently as Jan. 16. Trump's announcement claims that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which the AI order partly addresses, have "corrupted" US institutions by "replacing hard work, merit, and equality with a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy."
“We will repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology,” the Republican Party promised in July 2024, adding: "In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing."
The decision to ditch Biden's order doesn't mean Trump doesn't believe AI comes with risks, however, as Trump previously called AI a "superpower" with "alarming" potential.
Still, Trump plans to host AI leaders at the White House on Tuesday to discuss a joint pledge for billions in private sector AI infrastructure investments, CBS News reports. The effort, dubbed Stargate, will include buy-in from OpenAI, Softbank, and Oracle.
When Biden's AI Order was established, half a dozen US politicians applauded the measure alongside industry executives like Microsoft President Brad Smith, who called it a "critical step forward in the governance of AI technology" (In October, Microsoft founder Bill Gates quietly supported Kamala Harris for president with a $50 million donation).
Kent Walker, president of global affairs and chief legal officer at Google and Alphabet, also commented on the order in 2023, stating: "We’re reviewing today’s Executive Order, and we are confident that our long-standing AI responsibility practices will align with its principles. We’ll continue working together to maximize AI’s potential for good."
Executives from Adobe and Box, as well as some union and labor leaders, also praised the now-rescinded AI order. The US has little regulation around AI compared with other regions like the EU. In March last year, the European Union's AI Act was passed into law, establishing a ban on biometric data use and guardrails around other invasive AI applications. But some, like venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, have argued that a lack of AI regulation in the US is a good thing.
Trump, like Biden, sees AI as a key area of competition with other nations like China. In Biden's last week, his administration announced a regulatory framework for advanced AI and also expanded restrictions on the export of certain chips and hardware for running AI models to US-designated countries of concern, including China.