Make AI Great Again?

*Originally published at LinkedIn ,

Donald Trump has been relatively quiet on AI on his campaign trail – apart from a promise to revoke President Biden’s executive order on AI (which established some safety regulations for AI in America). This will further widen the AI regulatory gap between Europe and the US and may also exacerbate the regulatory vacuum at the federal level, with US states creating local AI laws (e.g. Colorado, California and Tennessee).

Trumps actions in the first term (which saw an artificial intelligence initiative focused on driving innovation) and his general rhetoric suggest that his administration will view AI primarily through the lens of great power competition, with American leadership and military applications as the main concerns. Trump allies are said to be preparing executive orders on “Making America First in AI” and establishing Manhattan Project-style initiatives on military applications. A key decision with broad impact will be whether Open Source AI is seen as helpful (“driving innovation”) or harmful (“China can also use it”) in this quest.

An unknown factor is the influence of Elon Musk, who is driving AI innovation, but who has also spoken about the risk of future AI turning against humans. He could push the administration towards looser regulation in autonomous driving (solving regulatory problems for Tesla), push for regulation against “woke AI” (demanding that AI be uncensored), or even support AI safety regulation to guard against existential risk.