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As it is, this is a bullshit document, which I'm sure their lobbyists know; OSTP is authorized to "serve as a source of scientific and technological analysis an

As it is, this is a bullshit document, which I'm sure their lobbyists know; OSTP is authorized to "serve as a source of scientific and technological analysis and judgment for the President with respect to major policies, plans, and programs of the Federal Government," and has no statutory authority to regulate anything, let alone preempt state law. In the absence of any explicit Congressional legislation to serve to federally preempt state regulation of AI, there's nothing the White House can do. (In fact, other than export controls and a couple of Defense Production Act wishlist items, everything in their "proposal" is out of the Executive's hands and the ambit of Congress.)

throwway120385 2y ago
You mean there's nothing the White House can do under the rule of law. There's plenty the White House can do under the color of law.
- genewitch 2y ago
  I heard something today and I wonder if someone can nitpick it. If what the admin is doing is illegal, then a court stops it, and they appeal and win, then it wasn't illegal. If they appeal all the way up and lose, then they can't do it. So what exactly is the problem? Mind you, I am asking for nits, this isn't my idea. I don't think "the administration will ignore the supreme court" is a good nit.
  - throwway120385 2y ago
    The problem is that it's erasing a lot of precedent that has existed for hundreds of years in the US, and it's not apparent that the erasure will be a good thing for us. For example, the idea that the president has some kind of soverign immunity from murder or theft or graft while they are the president as long as they can justify it as carrying out a duty of the office is pretty abhorrent. Military officers in the US have pretty strict requirements not to commit war crimes and there is a pretty strong concept of an "illegal order." And what we're telling the president now is that because he or she is the executive there can be no such thing as an illegal order. So now the president can personally shoot people and they have immunity from that because they are the president. And you have people arguing that on the one hand the executive has had too much leeway to regulate, but then in the same breath saying that the executive now needs to unilaterally ignore the orders of past congresses in order to fix whatever perceived problems have led us here. Which is a kind of irony that makes me think that this is being done not to solve problems but to reshape our government for some other end. And all of this is compounded by the legislature's unwillingness to exercise the exact power that they have been granted, which is to change the law of the United States. So in this situation it's hard to see the courts siding with these people as simply rationally applying the law, because the law itself as written by past legislatures is simply being ignored, as are past judicial precedents, because they are inconvenient to the goal of dismantling the US government. It's also extremely dangerous because the "full faith and credit" of the United States depends on us honoring our commitments even when they are inconvenient to us.

throwway120385 2y ago

You mean there's nothing the White House can do under the rule of law. There's plenty the White House can do under the color of law.

genewitch 2y ago
I heard something today and I wonder if someone can nitpick it. If what the admin is doing is illegal, then a court stops it, and they appeal and win, then it wasn't illegal. If they appeal all the way up and lose, then they can't do it. So what exactly is the problem? Mind you, I am asking for nits, this isn't my idea. I don't think "the administration will ignore the supreme court" is a good nit.
- throwway120385 2y ago
  The problem is that it's erasing a lot of precedent that has existed for hundreds of years in the US, and it's not apparent that the erasure will be a good thing for us. For example, the idea that the president has some kind of soverign immunity from murder or theft or graft while they are the president as long as they can justify it as carrying out a duty of the office is pretty abhorrent. Military officers in the US have pretty strict requirements not to commit war crimes and there is a pretty strong concept of an "illegal order." And what we're telling the president now is that because he or she is the executive there can be no such thing as an illegal order. So now the president can personally shoot people and they have immunity from that because they are the president. And you have people arguing that on the one hand the executive has had too much leeway to regulate, but then in the same breath saying that the executive now needs to unilaterally ignore the orders of past congresses in order to fix whatever perceived problems have led us here. Which is a kind of irony that makes me think that this is being done not to solve problems but to reshape our government for some other end. And all of this is compounded by the legislature's unwillingness to exercise the exact power that they have been granted, which is to change the law of the United States. So in this situation it's hard to see the courts siding with these people as simply rationally applying the law, because the law itself as written by past legislatures is simply being ignored, as are past judicial precedents, because they are inconvenient to the goal of dismantling the US government. It's also extremely dangerous because the "full faith and credit" of the United States depends on us honoring our commitments even when they are inconvenient to us.