The Trump administration on Friday outlined to Congress how it wants lawmakers to regulate AI. It is urging Congress to preempt states from passing their own AI laws, while offering guidance on how a broader federal framework could address state-level concerns without overburdening the industry.
Writing on X, White House “AI czar” David Sacks said the administration is responding to what it sees as a fragmented landscape of state-level rules, warning that a “patchwork” of regulations could slow innovation and undermine U.S. competitiveness in AI. But getting Congress to agree on sweeping AI legislation in an election year is a tall order, particularly as the industry’s massive data center buildout has become a flashpoint for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Fast Company spoke with Mina Narayanan, an AI safety and governance research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, about the details of the White House’s framework and its potential implications.
What are the main legislative goals in the White House’s framework?
This national policy framework covers a number of different topics, including child safety, establishing age verification protections for children, and giving parents more control over how minors are using AI technology. There are other pillars of this framework that cover strengthening American communities, requiring data center owners and operators to offset energy rate increases from the construction of data centers, and ensuring that agencies within the government have the technical capacity to understand foundational model capabilities and any national security considerations.
There are a number of other provisions around intellectual property rights, preventing the unauthorized digital replicas of individuals or artists, and preventing censorship–preventing the U.S. government from coercing technology providers to change the outputs of AI systems to adhere to certain ideologies or partisan agendas. And then there are a number of other recommendations around making federal data sets accessible to industry, establishing regulatory sandboxes, and conducting studies of the impacts of AI systems on the American workforce.
What can you tell me about the state pre-emption the White House wants?
