White House Prepares Executive Order To Block State AI Laws (politico.com) 81
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: The White House is preparing to issue an executive order as soon as Friday that tells the Department of Justice and other federal agencies to prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence, according to four people familiar with the matter and a leaked draft of the order obtained by POLITICO. The draft document, confirmed as authentic by three people familiar with the matter, would create an "AI Litigation Task Force" at the DOJ whose "sole responsibility" would be to challenge state AI laws.
Government lawyers would be directed to challenge state laws on the grounds that they unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce, are preempted by existing federal regulations or otherwise at the attorney general's discretion. The task force would consult with administration officials, including the special adviser for AI and crypto -- a role currently occupied by tech investor David Sacks.
The executive order, in the draft obtained by POLITICO, would also empower Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to publish a review of "onerous" state AI laws within 90 days and restrict federal broadband funds to states whose AI laws are found to be objectionable. It would direct the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether state AI laws that "require alterations to the truthful outputs of AI models" are blocked by the FTC Act. And it would order the Federal Communications Commission to begin work on a reporting and disclosure standard for AI models that would preempt conflicting state laws.
Government lawyers would be directed to challenge state laws on the grounds that they unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce, are preempted by existing federal regulations or otherwise at the attorney general's discretion. The task force would consult with administration officials, including the special adviser for AI and crypto -- a role currently occupied by tech investor David Sacks.
The executive order, in the draft obtained by POLITICO, would also empower Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to publish a review of "onerous" state AI laws within 90 days and restrict federal broadband funds to states whose AI laws are found to be objectionable. It would direct the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether state AI laws that "require alterations to the truthful outputs of AI models" are blocked by the FTC Act. And it would order the Federal Communications Commission to begin work on a reporting and disclosure standard for AI models that would preempt conflicting state laws.
Alternate headline (Score:5, Insightful)
"Whitehouse prepares document to force yet another fight in the Supreme Court."
These day's it's quite obvious that the only line in the constitution that any republican has ever read is the 2nd Amendement. And even then they didn't read it properly.
Re:Alternate headline (Score:5, Interesting)
"Whitehouse prepares document to force yet another fight in the Supreme Court."
These day's it's quite obvious that the only line in the constitution that any republican has ever read is the 2nd Amendement. And even then they didn't read it properly.
They certainly seem to have completely missed Article I. You know, the part that says that the legislature makes the laws? Even if you think restricting AI regulation to the federal government is a good idea, the right way to do it isn't with an executive order to set up a DOJ task force aimed at litigating state AI regulations out of existence based on complex legal theories about interstate commerce. The right way is for Congress to pass a law barring states from regulating AI. This is simpler, cheaper and should invoke public debate about the issue, which is how things are supposed to be done in constitutional republics.
I don't even think Trump is taking this route because he and his advisors don't believe they have the votes for it. I think they're doing it this way because they don't even consider governing through legislation rather than through executive power. Granted that Congress is fairly dysfunctional, but they actually can and do make laws... and the way to fix the dysfunction is to work the system.
Re:Alternate headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when "conservatives" believed in the 10th Amendment and "States' Rights"?
Boy weren't those the days. Now it seems they only care about that when they're trying to prevent the States from limiting the grifting assholes' ability to siphon money out of the public, or if those pesky States are allowing freedoms these tighty-righty dipshits can't abide because they're too busy pushing their virtue-signalling "moral beliefs" down everyone else's throats while violating those same beliefs themselves.
Re: Alternate headline (Score:5, Insightful)
He ran on a smaller government platform.. what he meant was Trump rules.
This is exactly what the companies who built his ballroom wanted. One bill to rule them all so they don't have to deal with 50 headaches.
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Guess he sees things as:
One man, one vote.
And Teump has the only vote.
Re: Alternate headline (Score:4, Insightful)
He ran on a smaller government platform.. what he meant was Trump rules.
Yes. The "States rights" rallying cry has only ever meant "States should have the right to enforce right wing ideals beyond what congress can do right now". States rights to ban abortion? Yes! States rights to regulate pollution? Fuck no time for the federal government to step in to crack down on that shit.
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Re:Alternate headline (Score:4, Insightful)
"States rights!"
"No, not like that!"
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Whaddya mean? States have the god-given right to legislate for any of the positions of the Republican party.
Those currently in power will stay in power (Score:4, Insightful)
These guys have no limits. A supreme court order will get ignored sooner or later. This will trigger a constitutional crisis. Those currently in power will try to do anything they can to keep ignoring the ruling up to and including interring the supreme court justices. Of course, congress could start impeachment proceedings, but they too could be interred. At that point martial law will be declared, voting will be suspended and the guns will start being collected.
You can bet those in power have a hand-picked set of national guard members who will be on hot standby to do the interring.
jury nullification is part of the power that an ju (Score:2)
jury nullification is part of the power that an jury has!
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A supreme court order will get ignored sooner or later. This will trigger a constitutional crisis. Those currently in power will try to do anything they can to keep ignoring the ruling up to and including interring the supreme court justices.
jury nullification is part of the power that an jury has!
I don't know why you think this is relevant to the discussion. If we get to a point where the Supreme Court is ignored, do you think the decision of some jury made of regular people would matter a damn? The nullification will be ignored, and the jury members would be lucky if they only get deported.
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A supreme court order will get ignored sooner or later.
Sooner or later? They ignored the Supreme Court ordering them to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia. Instead they spent a month coming up with some of the dumbest and lamest excuses as to why they couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't, musn't, etc. Only after every excuse fell flat they went "oh okay, and got the guy back within a couple of days"
We're well past the point of the Trump administration ignoring the courts.
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Oh, you only showed part of a sentence...
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Oh my god, you just proved my point so eloquently. I said you didn't read it properly, and you proceeded to ... not even look at all the words in the sentence.
I've never seen someone so stupid try and call someone else a dumbfuck. My friend I won't insult you further, with your self-own you're doing that job wonderfully yourself.
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Ah syntax is so hard for leftists.
Justification doesn't imply constraint, duh?
(The need for a militia is important so) the right to have guns shall not be limited.
Nothing in there implies that guns are limited to official militias, not even slightly.
If you STILL insist on your dumbass interpretation, fine: every adult male in the US is the militia, by law.:
US Code Sec 246:
The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of tit
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Say hi to Xi for me.
States Rights! (Score:5, Interesting)
So are we going to cheer for states rights on this one or not?
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Federally managed mean "Congress passes laws" not an Executive Order.
Your representatives are there to represent the interests of the states in the Federal government.
Wouldn't that make selling AI harder though, because all of a sudden you'd need 50 different 'flavours' of our AI to comply with all the state requirements
Online vendors already have to work in that type of framework, different states have different taxes, different warranty laws, different regulations. Also making AI harder to sell is half the argument, maybe theres a good reason to make it harder
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I'm sorry did the 17th not get ratified by 36 state legislatures?
Re: States Rights! (Score:2)
The internet crosses state lines and costs money. It is interstate commerce. But power to regulate is given to Congress
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Which means this EO isn't worth the paper it's printed on, just like so many others.
Re: States Rights! (Score:2)
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State's Rights or not, this effort only makes sense if there's already a Federal framework for regulating AI. There is not.
1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
And of course, guess who gets to decide what is "truthful".
Someone needs to explain why Republicans are so afraid of the truth.
Re: 1984 (Score:1)
Haha, "truth" and AI spew ? Let me help you, output of a language model isn't "truth" anyway.
Re: 1984 (Score:5, Informative)
When Grok was asked who were the worst purveyors of "misinformation" was on Twitter and came back with Musk, minutes later Musk said that would be taken care of. In fact, Musk had Grok blocked from reaching sites which were critical of Musk and his lies.
So there's the truth.
The US needs this to compete with China (Score:2)
We don't need a patchwork of 50+ regimes creating compliance nightmares. It burdens startups and kills innovation in the cradle.
Inconsistent laws will favor incumbents, harm small firms, and benefit China.
Imagine when the internet was getting started if every state was regulating content in a different way? Numerous startups would have never gotten off the ground.
BTW, this should come from Congress and not an EO.
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We need to compete in the AI slop war? Let them have it. How about we use all that VC and bubble cash to fund healthcare?
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We are a large enough country with a large enough economy that we should be able to do both at the same time.
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So? Healthcare is actually good for people.
AI slop is a negative, an actual detriment to society.
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So instead we need to allow a compromised federal government to enrich el Bunko; there are a lot of energy projects in need of federal approval, each of which will cost them dearly and allow el Bunko to peg his Grift-O-Meter again.
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Imagine when the internet was getting started if every state was regulating content in a different way?
Open a porn site in Florida or Alabama, this is already and always has been happening. If we want to upend that precedent I'm not opposed but it is precedent already.
Re: The US needs this to compete with China (Score:1)
Lolz we need to "compete with China"? Why? Because you said so? There are realms we can't compete, rare earths mining and production is one. We already are losing and lost there and that won't change for over a decade or more. Lithium ion batteries, ditto. Electronics ditto.
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Then we would have 50 small startups instead of one big one!
And don't forget the startups that would be formed to navigate that patchwork, similar to the way sales tax compliance companies work, or income tax filing companies. This must be a good thing because the IRS has shut down the Direct File program. [slashdot.org]
So what's the downside?
healthcare needs to be an national single payer (Score:2)
healthcare needs to be an national single payer
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Compete with them on what? Wasting money on unprofitable enterprise? Most Chinese models train off of foreign models anyway. It's not so much a competitive relationship as it is a symbiotic one.
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Here's what you "win" in "competition" over AI: congratulations, you are now the owner of a tool that sucks down gigawatts of energy to produce no profit and a whole lot of useless Twitter meme slop.
Maybe losing would be better.
Republicans never really cared about states rights (Score:5, Informative)
Which is why they are using the threat of withholding funds for unrelated activity. They have no way of enforcing such a law. So they threaten to withhold congressionally authorized broadband access grants. Basically saying, "Do what we want or we will hurt the rural economy and poor people in your state". Which is a similar strategy used in the 80s by republicans to lower the BAC to
I would be very surprised if this one doesn't end up in the courts. The Project 2025 has be a godsend work program from those in the legal profession. I wonder how many billions have already be wasted paying lawyers, judges, and all the support staff litigating all of these power grabs?
Re:Republicans never really cared about states rig (Score:4, Insightful)
The TDS is real;
Yesterday I got down modded for suggesting that the Anti-vax movement while lately embraced by MAGA; is hardly unique to that brand of politics, simply pointing out the easily observed truth that at least up until the pandemic you could find a lot anti-vaxers in very well-heeled, very granola blue areas, as much as anywhere on the right. I pointed out that RFK wasnt a Republican let alone MAGA until suddenly he and Trump thought they could advance their mutual agendas.
Now you people are going to go an insist that Drunk driving laws were some kinda Republican led thing, sure there were a lot of anti-drug right of main-line conservatives that were on board, but there were as many left of main-line liberals who saw it as public health and safety issue and the two came together to form a large enough coalition to get it done over the objections of the general public at the time. Once again though highly revisionist to claim it was GOP issue.
Ditto for the history of "cooperative federalism" as a concept. The GOP has certainly embraced it, and did so pretty quickly, but certainly did not invent it, that was New Deal Democrats!
Lord knows there are plenty of reasons someone can dislike Trump personally, object to the agenda, etc. However I become pretty unimpressed with most of those arguments because of posts like yours. They are mostly made by people who either are pretty ignorant of our political history, and/or are in some sort of deep reality distortion field where they believe Trump and anyone in his orbit actually invented these tactics, let alone anyone at Heritage. None of them have come up with anything new they are just flipping through their catalog of old grievances and successes alike and looking at what political tools brought them about. Then using them, usually with minimal finesse or competence.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Yesterday I got down modded for suggesting that the Anti-vax movement while lately embraced by MAGA; is hardly unique to that brand of politics,
No you didn't. Saying "but sure MAGA is the problem" is implying MAGA isn't the problem.
You got modded troll for implying that this brand of stupidity is largely on the other side when it's recently become a major plank of the MAGA movement. Speaking of which it's something of a fringe (not a small enough fringe but a fringe nonetheless) of Democrat voters, but have
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So you contend that a MAGA anti-vax guy in charge of the federal agency that compiles and distributes vaccination records and information about viral disease outbreaks isn't a problem, but the extreme edge of leftists with no power whatsoever to change anything in health policy that have anti-vax sympathies are the whole problem... and you're upset about the rightful "-1 Troll" moderation you received?
Rethink a few things please.
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So much for the rights of the states (Score:3)
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Electricity is used via wires over state lines, but that hasn't stopped state regulation of that.
Why is electricity in the form of interpretive 1s and 0s different?
That's horrible Obama would rule mine a king (Score:3)
Yet another Obama executive order. So wrong. Oh wait, what's that? It's out guy? Never mind. Carry on. States rights? Never heard of them.
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Sigh. Nevermind. Nothing to see here. Move along Stupid Google keyboard fails yet again.
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I agree in one respect (Score:2)
The state laws could be unconstitutional due to interstate commerce. However, the Feds should regulate it thoroughly. Enviromental, National Security, etc
There should be a national level effort like the Manhattan project. Companies should be working together under goverment oversight, and working toward a common goal. Maybe that will keep a AI apocalyse away for a bit. maybe protect us from it?
I know my opinion is in the minority. The future is starting to scare more than usual.
First order of business is "Define AI" (Score:2)
EO aren't laws (Score:2)
EO is just a Presidents Diary, they aren't laws and nobody has to listen to them.
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The only thing the executive order does is to instruct the Justice Department to sue states over AI regulations.
Usurping Congress Again (Score:1)
Of course, the correct way to do this is to pass a Federal Law regulating AI, and then using the supremacy clause of the Constitution to set aside State laws that conflict with it.
But, Trump has never been one to do things in the Constitutional way. He just things that EOs are "rule by decree" even if they're not.
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Again, the executive order is directed to the justice department, not to the states...
Who are they trying to kid? (Score:2)
If you intend to regulate artificial intelligence a prerequisite is the possession of actual intelligence.
Pass a law (Score:2)
Is this the line in the sand? (Score:3)
Misogyny - nope, that's cool.
Racism - marvellous, bring it on.
Tax cuts to wealthy, tax rises to poor, middle-class - groovy baby
Installing anti-health boss of health - makes sense to me.
Dismantling White House, rebuilding in his own image - why not, I kind of like gold.
Removing all agreements with other countries - isolationism FTW (unless we want something)
Tariffs for everyone, paid for by Americans - they'll never work it out until it's too late.
So, what's left that might possibly irritate a Republican with a brain? I know, let's start overreaching on states' rights. These boiling frogs won't stand in the way of Julius Trump. Next week we can get rid of some of those pesky amendments.
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Dismantling White House, rebuilding in his own image - why not, I kind of like gold.
How about really tacky brass or maybe bronze? Carved by a person!
States Rights! (Score:1)
Fascists (Score:2)
They are basically doing the opposite of libertarian/conservatism stated philosophy which is weak federal government. Instead they are doing straight up socialism (owning stake in companies/production) and exerting power uninvited in states (ICE raids).
We know it was always about tribalism.
Total VIolation (Score:2)
But then again, when did the U.S. Government give two SHITS about the U.S. Constitution.....
\o/ (Score:1)
Looking forward to the surprise news that ICE will have expanded powers to use Gestapo tactics on everyone.