https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-signs-executive...
Where did you get the idea that banning new technology that could eliminate jobs is even remotely an American value?
Going back to the Industrial Revolution the United States has been 100% gas pedal all the time on innovation and disruption, which has in turn created millions of jobs that didn't exist before and led to the US running the world's largest economy.
They ALL happened AFTER people got hurt. That's how we do things here. We always have.
It's kind of messed up, but the alternative is a bunch of rules on things that wouldn't be a real problem.
AI is already hurting people. We need regulation to hold it and its benefactors accountable. The federal government is preempting states from doing so.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgerwp7rdlvo
https://apnews.com/article/chatbot-ai-lawsuit-suicide-teen-a...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-teen-confided-in-an-ai-c...
https://www.pcmag.com/news/openai-sued-by-7-families-for-all...
https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/chatgpt-murder-suicide-...
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/tens-thousand...
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/17/tech/electricity-bill-price-i...
It was popularized that an estimated 8,000 infant deaths attributed to swill milk occured every year in NYC in the 1850s (take with a grain of salt).
Even more recently much of the banking regulation only occured after severe market issues that broadly impacted the economy.
On a related note: "Layoffs" are going to be a hard practical harm point to rally around. Unless we fundamentally change the nature of our economy (Which doesn't tend to happen until the previous system collapses.), effeciency is king. Tha market isn't rational, but effeciency is a competitive advantage that compounds over time. So you have a prisoners dilemma here. If you want to restrict a technology that boosts efficiency, you either have to close your market and then put up rules that constrain efficiency or you bleed your prosperity.
Many of those regulations at the federal level, yes?
In addition to ones at state level, yes.
If this had any whiff of actually shedding light on these needed regulations the root OP wouldn't have said what they did. But for now I'm going to head over to Polymarket and see if there are any bets I can place on Trump's kids being appointed to the OpenAI board.
Until that "innovation and disruption" threatens any established player, at which point they run crying to the government to grease some palms. China is innovating and disrupting the entire energy sector via renewables and battery storage while the US is cowering in the corner trying to flaccidly resuscitate the corpse of the coal industry.
Where did you get the idea that this was the cause that created millions of jobs and lead to the US running the world's largest economy, and not say - the knock-on effects of the US joining WW2 relatively late and unscathed, making it the only major world power left with a functioning enough industrial complex to export to war-ravaged Europe?
Arguably true, but it's also been way ahead of the pack (people tend to forget this) on protection for organized labor, social safety net entitlements, and regulation of harmful industrial safety and environmental externalities.
This statement is awfully one-sided.
To me the stronger argument about AI is that this revolution won't. And that's because this one is not really about productivity or even about capital investment in things that people nominally would want (faster transport, cheaper cotton, home computers). This one is about ending revolution once and for all; it's not about increeasing the wealth of the wealthy, it's about being the first to arrive at AGI and thus cementing that wealth disparity for all perpetuity. It's the endgame.
I don't know if that's true, but that's to me the argument as to why this one is exceptional and why the capitalist argument for American prosperity is inapplicable in this case.
Just because it can self improve doesn't mean it improves better than everything else or without substantial costs to develop improvement.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w&pp=ygUMSGFucyByb3N...
Immigration to the USA, both illegal and legal, has cratered.
Copyright law is another counter-example to your argument. But somehow? that’s no longer a concern if you have enough money. I guess the trick is to steal from literally everyone so that no one entity can claim any measurable portion of the output as damages.
I’ve always thought Copyright should be way shorter than it is, but it’s suspect that we’re having a coming to Jesus moment about IP with all the AI grifting going on.
There are things you can do with technology that are banned as a result of copyright protections, but the underlying technologies are not banned, only the particular use of them is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_St...
This govt clearly isn't going to regulate against harms like perpetuating systems of racism. This government adores to perpetuate systems of racism.
So fuck it. Let's race to the bottom like the companies want to so badly.
This is just flat out bribery, using the thinnest of legal fig leaves. Which would not possibly pass muster if he hadn't also packed the court with supporters.
"kept", I think.
The rest of the world has always called it corruption.
Its better to aak how this woll make republicans more money, because its not always apparent
Slavery was really not that long ago, we are still actively invading countries and murdering people for oil, and we help bankroll straight up genocide in regions such as Darfur and Palestine.
This is business as usual.
Also, The first time Trump was elected, the majority of voters went for Hillary Clinton. Second time, it was still 49% versus 48% for Kamala Harris. The majority of Americans have never voted for Donald Trump nor ever supported him.
Can you point to a concrete example of this?
$200M - https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/1527a7adaff14a5280fc7...
$140M - https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/c0203e75ec2949e78966f...
$31M - https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/8b0b944955064864942fc...
$1M - https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/86d997fbd8a74d0cb298c...
$642M over 10 years - https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/c9878b113f5143cba7edb...
$3.1M - https://sam.gov/opp/f15d4b63ebc846cd9f4870cfa0772fff/view
$160M - https://www.anduril.com/news/anduril-awarded-contract-to-red...
$86M - https://www.anduril.com/news/special-operations-command-sele...
$100M - https://www.anduril.com/news/anduril-awarded-usd99-6m-for-u-...
The Marine Corps I-CsUAS award is explicitly described as an IDIQ with a maximum dollar value of $642M over 10 years -- though it could be much less -- and reporting indicates it was competitively procured with 10 offerors. It wasn't "gifted"/"no-bid"
Also: $642M spread over 10 years is roughly $64M/year at the ceiling, and ceilings are often not fully used. That scale is not remotely unusual for a program-of-record counter-UAS capability if the government believes the threat is persistent. (Which it does.)
The rest are similarly mundane and justifiable.
Here's what would be weird: Repeated sole-source awards where a competitive approach is feasible, implausible technical scope relative to deliverables, unjustified pricing, or political intervention affecting downselects. I don't see any of that here. (But, okay, let's not talk about Palantir, lol.)
Imagine Silicon Valley CEOs pumped full of VC dollars and embedded with units that Don't Exist in places We Were Never At.
So where is this coalition that’s organized to actually make this real?
Software engineers are allergic to unionization (despite the recent id win) and 100% of capital owners (this is NOT business owner and operators I’m talking about LPs and Fund Managers) are in support of labor automation as a priority, the same people also run every government and overwhelmingly select the politicians available to vote for, so who will fund and lead your advocacy?
I'm open to the idea of guilds, but personally I do not want others negotiating for me with the type of work I do, I'd prefer it to be a contract between me, my employer and nothing else. Unions aren't always a net benefit for every industry.
Of course, with AI going the way it is, collective bargaining might become more attractive in our field. But institutions can be slow to catch up and not everyone always agrees with the outcome. Personally, if I worked in Hollywood, I'd be upset about the kind of anti-AI scaremongering and regulation taking place in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA.
The desire for more. To have more than others, is a key problem that generates unhealthy politics. Unhealthy foreign policy towards other countries. In your pursuit of being first in everything. Being first in everything, preventing the development of other countries, holding onto technologies for yourself. You create an imbalance. You create an imbalance in the global economy, in politics, in the social sphere, and in the social environment.
Isn't there an alternative to having sustainable development? Built on the principles of mutual support and focused not on dominance, but on collaboration between peaceful states. Between peaceful states.
"I can picture a world without fear, without hate. I can picture us conquering that world, because they'd never expect it."
States are what can be called superorganisms literally made entirely out of coercion to get others to serve their goals without their consent. Despite the claims of social contract, nobody ever signed one. Asking statew not to seek dominance is like asking a wolf to take up vegetarianism. They technically could do it but it goes fundamentally against its entire design and purpose.
Not to mention that saying no to 'more' isn't kumbaya everyone has peace and freedom. It means active suppression of ambitions of others. States are made of coercion, remember?
There’s no world govt or global authority. Every country must look after its own interests.
Having every country cooperate requires trusting some entity as a global enforcer, one that wont abuse their unchecked power. Obviously, america has played this role since ww2 but not without plenty of mistakes and oversights.
We as humans haven’t found an alternative to this yet.
It sounds like a good idea to establish a uniform national policy! And the federal government can do that (although only for the very specific purposes spelled out in the Constitution). The right way to do that is to pass a law through both houses of Congress, and the president to sign it into law. Maybe the law even specifies a broad framework and authorizes the executive branch to dial in the specific details (although the court seems to be souring on that kind of thing too).
The god-king proclaiming a brand new framework governing a major new sector of the economy To Be So is.. not the normal way
The Legislative branch (Congress) not the Executive branch (White House) can preempt states.
> The order directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to create an “AI Litigation Task Force” within 30 days whose "sole responsibility shall be to challenge State AI laws" that clash with the Trump administration's vision for light-touch regulation.
The EO isn't about Federal Preemption. Trump's not creating a law to preempt states. So a question about how Federal Preemption is relevant is on point.
Sounds like leaving it up to Congress! But then the administration vows to thwart state laws despite the vacuum of no extant preemption, so effectively imposing a type of supposed Executive preemption:
> Until such a national standard exists, however, it is imperative that my Administration takes action to check the most onerous and excessive laws emerging from the States that threaten to stymie innovation.
So preemption link is relevant, I think; and at any rate, helpful to give background to those not familiar with the concept, which constitutes the field against which this is happening.
Their goal is to make money and enrich their own lives at the expense of everyone else.
Stephen Miller is just super weird though. Don’t bother trying to figure that guy out.
"We in the executive branch have an agreement with the Supreme Court allowing us to bypass congress and enact edicts. We will do this by sending the Justice Department any state law that gets in the way of our donors, sending the layup to our Republican Supreme Court, who will dunk on the States for us and nullify their law."
We don't have to go through the motions of pretending we still live in a constitutional republic, it's okay to talk frankly about reality as it exists.
[0] I'd be willing to call them something else if they picked an honest name for themselves - they are most certainly not "conservatives"
There's a reasonable argument that nationwide regulation is the more efficient and proper path here but I think it's pretty obvious that the intent is to make toothless "regulation" simply to trigger preemption. You don't have to do much wondering to figure out the level of regulation that David Sacks is looking for.
The EO mentions congress passing new law a few times in addition to an executive task force to look into challenging state laws based on constitutional violations or federal statues. That's the only way they'd get in front of a judge.
If the plan is for the executive to invent new laws it's not mapped out in this EO
1. No federal preemption currently. (No federal law, therefore no regulation on the matter that should preempt.)
2. State passes and enforces law regarding AI.
3. Trump directs Bondi to challenge the state law on nonsense grounds.
4. In the lawsuit, the state points out that there is no federal preemption; oh yeah, 10th Amendment; and that the administration's argument is nonsense.
5. The judge, say Eileen Cannon, invalidates the state law.
6. Circuit Court reverses.
7. Administration seeks and immediately gets a grant of certiorari — and the preemption matter is in the Supreme Court.
> passing new law … only way they'd get it in front of a judge.
The EO directs Bondi to investigate whether, and argue that, existing executive regulations (presumably on other topics) preempt state legislation.
Regardless, the EO makes it a priority to find and take advantage of some way to challenge and possibly invalidate state laws on the subject. This is a new take on preemption: creation of a state-law vacuum on the subject, through scorched-earth litigation (how Trumpian!), despite an utter absence of federal legislation on the matter.
>2.5 If it's a blue state, maybe the National Guard and ICE suddenly show up in force for the people's own protection.
>3. States choose entirely of their own volition to comply in advance.
That's probably how this is really going to go.
> Sec. 7. *Preemption of State Laws* Mandating Deceptive Conduct in AI Models.
Even given the current state of things (I’m a lawyer, so well aware) I would put money on this
People fall for it because fear of foreign rivals, frustration with a regulatory patchwork, and anti‑“ideological” backlash make a centralized, tough‑sounding fix emotionally satisfying. Big Tech and national‑security rhetoric also create an illusion that “dominance” equals safety and prosperity, short‑circuiting careful federalism and due process.
* Bush (41): 166
* Clinton (two terms): 364
* Bush (43; two terms): 291
* Obama (two terms): 276
* Trump (45): 220
* Biden: 162
* Trump (47; <1 year): 218
Source:
* https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-or...
Someone commented that (one of?) the reason that Trump is using EOs so much is probably because is not willing (or able) to actually get deals on in the legislature to pass his policies (or what passes for policy with him).
Everything they do, however, is petty, cruel and nakedly corrupt while also being marred by a total lack of competence.
the Major Questions Doctrine, the end of Chevron deference, the mandate for Article III courts from Jarkesy, have been building towards this for a while. the capstone in this program of weakening the administrative state, overturning Humphrey's Executor when Trump v. Slaughter is decided, will likely revive the Intelligible Principle Doctrine, as Justice Gorsuch has hinted. the same trend is apparent in the IEEPA tariffs case, where non-delegation got a lot of airtime.
EOs lose a lot of their punch when the Executive's delegated rulemaking and adjudication powers are returned back to their rightful owners in the other two branches.
That does not apply to his lackeys though (unless there's a preemptive pardon).
If (!) there's a change in the President eventually, there needs to be a reckoning for everyone that didn't push back on instructions/orders (including all the folks down the line who are blowing up (alleged) drug boats).
Perhaps worth reading "The umpire who picked a side: John Roberts and the death of rule of law in America":
* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/...
Also "John Roberts and the Cynical Cult of Federalist No. 70":
* https://newrepublic.com/article/204334/john-roberts-federali...
And "This Is All John Roberts’ Fault":
* https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/11/john-roberts-do...
And perhaps "Trump Allies Sue John Roberts To Give White House Control Of Court System":
* https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-allies-sue-john-rob...
I have the power to do it. Why would I not?
Presumably EOs further the President’s goals.
Each EO tests the waters a bit more with what the public and other branches will tolerate. As we’ve seen with numerous orders already, Congress and business will comply early because they think it will benefit them.
Trump thinks himself a king. He acts like it. He’s attempting to normalize his behavior. He can’t deal with the legislature because it turns out white supremacy isn’t that popular. Who knew?
Even the centrist TV networks are still treating Trump like a normal president. News like the NYTimes does the same, while platforming horrible people in their op ed section.
Edit: anec-data - I have an embarrassing number of family members that voted for him. I asked why and the surprising common thing among all of them was they just didn’t know. The felonies, convictions, scandals, the racism and transphobia. They were just surprised. And they’re not very good at thinking critically about much of it.
Instead they’re voting for some nostalgia and the idea that they felt safer and more secure in their country when they were younger.
After Nixon a lot of lessons were learned, on how to handle scandals and how to ram unpopular policy down America’s throat.
It's easy to get caught in an echo chamber of like-minded individuals and assume everyone disagrees with his policies - but that is far from reality.
Published today: "Trump's approval rating on the economy hits record low 31%"[1]
> President Trump's approval rating on his longtime political calling card — the economy — has sunk to 31%, the lowest it has been across both of his terms as president, according to a new survey from The Associated Press-NORC.
"Trump's Approval Rating Drops to 36%, New Second-Term Low" [2]
> his all-time low was 34% in 2021, at the end of his first term after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The man is only two points above where he was when every reputable institution on the planet was running away from him as fast as possible, and he was nearly convicted in the senate. Less than a year into the term.
[1] https://www.axios.com/2025/12/12/trump-economy-inflation-aff...
[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/699221/trump-approval-rating-dr...
And there is an interesting argument that most modern presidential approvals have more to do with the media environment and better visibility on just how bad their policies are.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_app...
[1] I'd argue better than that loser Bush who was probably the worst president in modern US history and who's polling showed it, but for the sake of keeping things simple.
I think you can go further, the ratings are also heavily tied to things like gasoline prices and the overall economy, and generally things the president has little control over. So actually not much to do with their policies at all. I think Trump knows this and it's why he's done some strategically stupid things to the US fossil fuel industry in order to tactically bring down gasoline prices to juice his ratings.
This likely also explains the 2024 election, because it happened in the context of vast sums of money being sucked out of the economy as the fed tried to fight inflation. Incumbents globally got an absolute thrashing that year regardless of what their actual policies were.
You might want to look up those data yourself because uh he's actually unpopular in those metrics.
Approval - 42.5% [1]. Much better than Trump's love interest Biden's 37.1% [2] but being below 50% is unpopular.
Popular Vote / Electoral Vote - 49.8%, 312. I may need to tell you this so I will. 50% is greater than 49.8%; a majority of voters (nevermind the country) did not want Trump. As before, this is better than Biden's 306 and Trump1's 304 but worse than Obama2 (332), Obama1 (365) and in general 312 (57%) is nothing to write home about.
[1]: https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-sil...
No shit?
The actual small government republican congressmen like https://x.com/justinamash have been very critical of Trump's power grabs but he lost political favor doing so
"State's rights to do what?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZB2ftCl2Vk
> State-by-State regulation by definition creates a patchwork of 50 different regulatory regimes
Like... isn't that the whole point? Let the states decide?
It's funny to me that they categorise AI and crypto together like this, two technologies that have nothing to do with each other (other than both being favoured by grifters).
No, they're different in that regard as well; AI actually does have a bit of "there" there.
For AI specifically, baseline standards around model documentation, data sourcing transparency, and compute auditing would actually help larger players (who can afford compliance) and reduce race-to-bottom dynamics that harm smaller developers.
eliminating-state-law-obstruction-of-national-artificial-intelligence-policy
The minimum, though, is that all copyrighted works the supplier has legal access to can be copied, transformed arbitrarily, and used for training. And they can share those and transformed versions with anyone else who already has legal access to that data. And no contract, including terms of use, can override that. And they can freely scrape it but maybe daily limits imposed to avoid destructive scraping.
That might be enough to collect, preprocess, and share datasets like The Pile, RefinedWeb, uploaded content the host shares (eg The Stack, Youtube). We can do a lot with big models trained that way. We can also synthesize other data from them with less risk.
Has Trump IDed the alleged bad actor states?
So when states without AI data centers seek to ameliorate tax and zoning obstacles, it won’t be Federal preemption in their way, but what benefits Trump.
> Trump has framed the need for comprehensive AI regulation as both a necessity for the technology’s development and as a means of preventing leftist ideology from infiltrating generative AI – a common conservative grievance among tech leaders such as Elon Musk.
On the other hand ..... Grok and others ...
From the party of "states rights" and "small government"
[0] https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/d...
Sacks argued that this domain of “interstate commerce” was “the type of economic activity that the Framers of the Constitution intended to reserve for the federal government to regulate.”
At the Oval Office signing ceremony, Sacks said, "We have 50 states running in 50 different directions. It just doesn't make sense."
I'd like to point out that the South was only a fan of States Rights exactly insofar as they let them do slavery. The millisecond it came to forcing Northern states to return escaped slaves, they suddenly weren't the same principled supporters of devolving and federating power. Funny how that works.
So in that respect, mission accomplished.
The "The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production, based on the acreage owned by a farmer, to stabilize wheat prices and supplies." seems like quite the federal overreach never mind the court decision.
They did indeed. It’s explicitly delegated to congress which declined to pass a law like this.
The EO is just obviously null and void in the face of any relevant state law.
This is like Trump's "pardon" of someone serving time for a state crime. It does little if anything.
Quite a number of AI-related bills have been introduced in Congress, but very few have made much progress. Search "AI" on congress.gov.
It seems extremely popular based on my LinkedIn feed! /s
The pivot will be when they starting talking about AGI and it's dangers and how it must be regulated! (/clutches pearls)... right now they are at the "look at AI we need it it's awesome" stage.
We were promised a better economy, better job chances, and better housing by Mr. Sacks on YouTube.
Instead we get "crypto", "AI" and addictive substance grifting.
There are a lot of states, and especially state universities, that will not like that.
The executive, in fact, must spend money that congress appropriates. Unless it is illegal/et al to do so, or the funding otherwise allows prseidential discretion, they are required to do so.
Yes, they did some EO's purporting to cut funding. None that related to non-discretionary funding have been upheld, even by "trump" judges, and so far all non-discretionary (IE explicitly directed by congress) funding cut has been restored, AFAIK. All are a wildly clear violation of separation of powers, and so far no judge has disagreed.
(Though don't confuse whether they have to spend the money the way congress directs with whether they can or can't fire federal employees, etc)
There is a path to the president impounding appropriated money through the impoundment control act, but they haven't done it or followed the process so far.