Trump is bringing back the AI law moratorium

The White House unveiled its long-awaited “AI Action Plan” on Wednesday, and it included a zombie: A resurrected form of the controversial AI law moratorium that died a very public death. 

The failed congressional moratorium would have stipulated that no state could regulate artificial intelligence systems for a 10-year period, on pain of being barred from a $500 million AI development fund and potentially losing rural broadband funding. And Trump’s new plan has a similar, albeit vaguer, provision buried within. It states that “AI is far too important to smother in bureaucracy at this early stage” and the government “should not allow AI-related Federal funding to be directed toward states with burdensome AI regulations that waste these funds,” though it should also “not interfere with states’ rights to pass prudent laws that are not unduly restrictive to innovation.”

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget will work with federal agencies that have “AI-related discretionary funding programs to ensure, consistent with applicable law, that they consider a state’s AI regulatory climate when making funding decisions and limit funding if the state’s AI regulatory regimes may hinder the effectiveness of that funding or award.” 

Essentially, states that do choose to enforce their own AI regulations may be punished for it on a federal level, under a different sort of AI law moratorium — one with, as described in this plan, no expiration date. 

The AI Action Plan also states that the Federal Communications Commission will lead a charge to “evaluate whether state AI regulations interfere with the agency’s ability to carry out its obligations and authorities under the Communications Act of 1934.” No word yet on what the penalties for that will be. 

The official White House press release made no mention of the state guidelines. More detail about Trump’s plan — which encourages rapid adoption of AI tech and expansion of AI infrastructure, as well as attempts to root out diversity and climate science in AI systems used by the government — will come in a series of executive orders this week.

The congressional moratorium initially passed the House of Representatives, but it was largely condemned by Democrats and divisive among some Republicans. Some industry activists believed it would prohibit not just new AI regulation, but data privacy, facial recognition, and other tech-related rules in states like Washington and Colorado.

After an intense 24-hour period of lobbying and back-door dealmaking — including 45 rounds of votes — 99 out of 100 senators voted for the moratorium’s exclusion from Trump’s funding bill. 

Now, against all odds, the provision may be coming back from the dead.