Donald Trump to issue executive order limiting states from putting up AI guardrails

US President Donald Trump has said he plans to sign an executive order that will limit the ability of individual states to regulate artificial intelligence.

His announcement, posted to his social media platform Truth Social, ends weeks of speculation about the AI executive order.

“There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI,” he wrote. “We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but won't last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors, involved in RULES and the APPROVAL PROCESS.”

After much speculation, US President Donald Trump announced he would put a limit on how states regulate AI.

For all the enthusiasm and investment dedicated to AI, concerns of negative ramifications abound, including labour disruption, rising energy costs and other issues. As a result, politicians in almost all of the 50 US states have proposed various laws that place guardrails on AI.

Many of those proposals have not yet become law, but some tech companies and those who favour a less regulated approach fear a patchwork of state laws could blunt AI research and development.

Timothy Kneeland, a professor of history, politics and law at Nazareth University in upstate New York, said Mr Trump's executive order might not be easy to put into effect.

“Congress could rule that AI development and/or deployment falls within their jurisdiction as interstate commerce, and the President cannot, acting alone, dictate to states whether they can pass regulations controlling AI in their own states,” he said, adding that the executive order will probably “be litigated in the federal courts”.

Peter Yacobucci, a political science professor at Buffalo State University, told The National that although the legality of President Trump’s order is likely to be challenged, ultimately the Supreme Court seems poised to eventually uphold the policy move.

“If you asked me ten years ago whether this use of executive foreign policy power to preempt state action is valid, I would have scoffed,” Prof Yacobucci said, when asked about Mr Trump’s executive order.

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