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Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/11/trump-signs-executive-order-for-single-national-ai-regulation-framework.html https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/11/trump-signs-executive-order-...
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-signs-executive-order-seeking-ban-state-laws-ai-rcna248741 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-signs-executive...
- andsoitis 11mo agoWhite House AI czar and Silicon Valley venture capitalist David Sacks elaborated on the rationale for the executive order in a post on X. 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."
- mcdan 11mo agoSo much for "states rights" and the "laboratories of democracy."
- AndrewKemendo 11mo agoWe had a pretty decisive event eliminating precicely that experiment
- TimorousBestie 11mo agoCould you be more specific?
- AndrewKemendo 11mo agohttps://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment
- schmidtleonard 11mo agoHe probably means the civil war. 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.
- duskwuff 11mo agoAnd just in case it wasn't clear enough already: one of the first acts of the Confederacy was to draft a provisional constitution which explicitly authorized slavery, and which prohibited either Congress or any state from passing laws to the contrary.
- lesuorac 11mo agoStates also weren't allow to leave the Confederacy ...
- TimorousBestie 11mo agoYeah, I just wanted them to cut out the coy vagueposting and say out loud how bad they think Reconstruction was. So in that respect, mission accomplished.
- stocksinsmocks 11mo ago[flagged]
- TimorousBestie 11mo agoNow that’s an excellent piece of latter-day Confederate apologia that I haven’t heard before. The South was basically Gaza. Amazing work.
- jandrewrogers 11mo agoWickard v Filburn rearing its ugly ahead again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
- rubyfan 11mo agoI’m not a legal scholar but this seems pretty bone headed.
- lesuorac 11mo agoWhich part? 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.
- rubyfan 11mo agoMostly the decision but yeah it’s a double whammy of bad policy from congress and probably worse ruling from the court.
- threemux 11mo agoMany of the ills currently befalling the US can be traced to the New Deal era. Including, of course, an HN favorite: our system of employer-sponsored health insurance.
- CPLX 11mo ago> 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.” 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.
- cebert 11mo agoI wish this article would include what the details of the framework are. It’s unhelpful in its current form.
- dang 11mo agoWe've since changed the URL to link to the order itself, and put links to other articles in the toptext.
- techblueberry 11mo agoA win for states rights!
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- dmix 11mo agoJust like the last time Trump was president he is far from a traditional conservative regarding small government. People pretend the 2010 tea party is the same thing as Trump as some sort of gotcha, but he's never been that way. He's always been very assertive regarding expanding executive and federal power.
- yks 11mo agoNo one is surprised about that guy, those comments usually point out how "the 2010 tea party", and everyone else from the decades, if not centuries, of the conservative milieu, are suddenly all in on this.
- noitpmeder 11mo agoThe president isnt going to personally enrich himself and his cronies by _divesting_ power from his offce
- dmix 11mo agoI agree, the main reason is he has been very effective with his cult of personality to get most of the republican congressmen in line. They lose elections if they don't and politicians aren't known for sticking to their values once in power. The actual small government republican congressmen like https://x.com/justinamash https://x.com/justinamash have been very critical of Trump's power grabs but he lost political favor doing so
- treetalker 11mo agoFederal Preemption: A Legal Primer — https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45825 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45825
- dav- 11mo agoWhat does this have to do with executive orders?
- alwa 11mo agoI imagine it’s a nod to the way the stated goal would normally be pursued, but in this case is not. 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
- peterlk 11mo agoThe link is highly relevant to the executive order because this executive order attempts to place limitations on what laws US states can create.
- lesuorac 11mo agoEOs aren't law though. They're guidance for the rest of the executive branch on how to execute the laws written by congress. The Legislative branch (Congress) not the Executive branch (White House) can preempt states.
- twisteriffic 11mo agoI don't know if you've heard, but norms don't matter anymore.
- treetalker 11mo agoFederal Preemption: A Legal Primer — https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45825 https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45825
- throw0101a 11mo agoExecutive order (EO) count over the last few presidents: * 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-orders 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).
- conception 11mo agoOr why bother when no one will stop you from ruling by fiat?
- nh23423fefe 11mo agoYes, why would you bother not exercising power you possess?
- scythmic_waves 11mo agoYep. I punch literally everyone I meet in the face. I have the power to do it. Why would I not?
- janalsncm 11mo agoIs assaulting people going further your goals? Presumably EOs further the President’s goals.
- estimator7292 11mo agoMany of those goals are to simply hurt the "wrong" type of people.
- N_Lens 11mo ago
- ChrisArchitect 11mo agomeanwhile the url is a different, more direct kind of statement: eliminating-state-law-obstruction-of-national-artificial-intelligence-policy
- ChrisArchitect 11mo ago[dead]
- ChrisArchitect 11mo agoSome more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46239009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46239009
- dang 11mo agoWe'll merge that thread hither.
- xeonmc 11mo agoIn a parallel universe, the government in the 20th century signed bills protecting tobacco giants from State regulation to encourage investments furthering the country’s international competitiveness in the tobacco industry.
- sigwinch 11mo agoThat does kind of draw a contrast between Jesse Helms, the ultimate tobacco Senator, and Trump. They’re almost opposites.
- eastof 11mo agoIn a parallel universe tobacco is critical to the national security interest of the state. I feel you and other commenters in this thread are ignoring the fact that the outcome of the next war will likely be decided on the cyber front.
- N_Lens 11mo agoI don’t think humanity will survive the next war.
- spencerflem 11mo agoI’m hopeful humanity will, but civilization isn’t making it
- chrisjj 11mo agoTrue current title: Trump signs executive order aimed at preventing states from regulating AI
- nhaehnle 11mo agoIn particular, the bulk of the substantial text of the order has a pretty clear culture war bend with all the talk about how truthful AI is. This is in large part a fight over the political leaning of AI models.
- chrisjj 11mo ago> Earlier this week, he reiterated that sentiment in a post on Truth Social, saying: “We are beating ALL COUNTRIES at this point in the race, but that won’t last long if we are going to have 50 States, many of them bad actors Has Trump IDed the alleged bad actor states?
- sigwinch 11mo agoIt’s hard to tell if what he says is even relate to what he will do. A hardline on semiconductors to China faded this week when he needed some economic stimulation. 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.
- munchler 11mo agoIt’s the blue ones, of course.
- k310 11mo ago> Republicans earlier this year failed to pass a similar 10-year moratorium on state laws that regulate AI as part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with the Senate voting 99-1 to remove that ban from the legislation. Trump’s order resurrects that effort, which failed after bipartisan pushback and Republican infighting, but as an order that lacks the force of law. [0] > 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/democracy-governance/explainer-executive-orders-governing-tool https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/d...
- henning 11mo ago[flagged]
- rubyfan 11mo agoIs it me or does this seem like naked corruption at its worst? These tech CEOs hang out at the White House and donate to superfluous causes and suddenly the executive is protecting their interests. This does nothing to protect working US citizens from AI alien (agents) coming to take their jobs and displace their incomes.
- outside1234 11mo agoYou aren't missing anything. This is oligarchic capture of the government.
- parineum 11mo ago[flagged]
- fhd2 11mo agoI think people commonly use the word to refer to business oligarchs, which are not technically government: "A business oligarch is generally a business magnate who controls sufficient resources to influence national politics." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_oligarch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_oligarch
- AndrewKemendo 11mo ago> protect working US citizens from AI alien (agents) coming to take their jobs and displace their incomes 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?
- soulofmischief 11mo agoGame developers are subject to much more abuse than the average software engineering job, for less pay. It's a different environment. 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.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- fallingfrog 11mo agoAs expected, the stupidest imaginable policy. Take all the guardrails completely off, even though the ones that are in place are already toothless. Don't worry, the free market will ensure that everything is turned into paperclips at the maximum possible speed.
- metronomer 11mo agoLet's hope it doesn't get universal
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- siliconc0w 11mo agoAn EO is not law - the hard part is going to be to get congress onboard. Trump is losing political steam and AI is widely unpopular. Most of this country feels AI is going take their job, poison their children, and increase energy prices.
- Animats 11mo agoRight. Congress has the power to preempt state law in an area related to interstate commerce by legislating comprehensive rules. The executive branch does not have the authority to do that by itself. 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.
- missingcolours 11mo ago> Trump is losing political steam and AI is widely unpopular. It seems extremely popular based on my LinkedIn feed! /s
- malfist 11mo agoGood thing LinkedIn is such an authentic representation of the vox populi
- hcurtiss 11mo agoWhere do you get this impression? I don’t know anybody who thinks that.
- bgwalter 11mo agoPure nepotism. Trump also recently softened on cannabis. Who is involved in cannabis (and Adderall) startups? David Sacks, "Crypto and AI czar" and YouTube pundit. 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.
- m4ck_ 11mo agoPerhaps folks should take some time to realize they've been conned by people whose only interest is their own personal weatlh and power, and will promise anything like "prices are going down day one" or "your income and networth will DOUBLE if you elect me" to get elected.
- ETH_start 11mo agoVery welcome order to prevent the anti-AI movement from stymieing the development of AI in the U.S.
- DannyBee 11mo agoExcept it does literally nothing since EO can’t preempt state law
- petcat 11mo agoIt could have some teeth considering that the whole point is the executive office is going to establish a task force that investigates state laws in opposition of this federal deregulation of AI. Any states deemed to be out of sync will have certain kinds of federal funding cut from them. There are a lot of states, and especially state universities, that will not like that.
- DannyBee 11mo agoThe Executive can't actually cut approriated federal funding, since budgets are congress's job. 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.
- nickpsecurity 11mo agoMore than anything, they need to match and then exceed Singapore's text and data mining exception for copyrighted works. I'll be happy to tell them how since I wrote several versions of it trying to balance all sides. 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.
- d--b 11mo agoThis is hardly readable. What’s this about?
- ngcc_hk 11mo agoNational … is it relevant ? And what is the point and why republicans do what the democrats do. Wonder.
- insane_dreamer 11mo agoAnd here I thought the GOP was the "states rights" "small gov" party.
- justarandomname 11mo agoYeah, was thinking the same thing. Reading this: > 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?
- ziml77 11mo agoIt's never been about principles of states rights. It's always about disliking specific national policies and spinning the argument to make it sound as if it's about a reasonable principle. "State's rights to do what?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZB2ftCl2Vk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZB2ftCl2Vk
- maplethorpe 11mo ago> shall, in consultation with the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto 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).
- tbrownaw 11mo ago> 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.
- rokoss21 11mo agoThe regulation vs innovation framing is a false dichotomy here. Most developed economies have found that thoughtful regulation enables _sustainable_ innovation - see GDPR and data privacy innovation, or pharma regulations driving R&D. 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.
- aw124 11mo agoQuestion number one. Is dominance really a necessary part of a country's existence? Can't you just have peaceful relations and supportive relationships with other countries to live in harmony, when artificial intelligence brings benefits to all countries, not just the USA? Can't you build on the technological foundations that have been laid to create sustainable development for your society? 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.
- isubkhankulov 11mo agoYes, dominance is preferred. Countries’ resources aren’t evenly distributed, and this fact determines foreign policy more than anything else. 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.
- tbrownaw 11mo ago> Can't you just have peaceful relations and supportive relationships with other countries to live in harmony "I can picture a world without fear, without hate. I can picture us conquering that world, because they'd never expect it."
- Nasrudith 11mo agoStasis is the quickest way to be 'sustainible' but is a far from ideal outcome. Even if we ignore the squandered potential, take a look at what happened to Japan and others who pursued policies of stagnation for the sake of stability. The lucky ones only got admiral Perry-ied. The unlucky ones were brutally colonized or conquered. The really unlucky ones no longer exist. 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?
- arminiusreturns 11mo agoWhere this is really going: AI is the boogie man they are going to try to use to infiltrate and take over computing, it's 90s cryptowars 3.0 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.
- DannyBee 11mo agoAny company dumb enough to try to use this to ignore actual state law will get what they deserve. No state court will give them a pass when they claim an EO has any force of law or that it was reasonable to rely on it. Even given the current state of things (I’m a lawyer, so well aware) I would put money on this
- resters 11mo agoLike most of what Trump does it's 1000% emo and also very stupid. It's proudly anti-democratic and fundamentally disrespectful of American values. 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.
- peter_d_sherman 11mo agoThe following passage seems particularly noteworthy: >"Sec. 3. AI Litigation Task Force. Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General shall establish an AI Litigation Task Force (Task Force) whose sole responsibility shall be to challenge State AI laws inconsistent with the policy set forth in section 2 of this order, including on grounds that such laws unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce, are preempted by existing Federal regulations, or are otherwise unlawful in the Attorney General’s judgment, including, if appropriate, those laws identified pursuant to section 4 of this order. The Task Force shall consult from time to time with the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and the Assistant to the President and Counsel to the President regarding the emergence of specific State AI laws that warrant challenge." It would seem logical to believe that there will be a number of AI-meets-law legal cases in the future, both in the U.S., it's States, and in the jurisdictions of foreign countries and their respective States/Districts/Regions... I'm guessing (but not knowing) that the U.N. will have its own similar task force in the future -- as will other countries and their jurisdictional / law-making regions... It will be interesting (at least from the perspective of a disinterested-in-outcome-but-interested-in-process legal observer) to see what cases (and also what laws/statutes) emerge in this area (Region Vs. Nation, Nation Vs. Region, Nation Vs. Nation, Region Vs. Region) in the future, and how they will be resolved... (You know, for students of AI, students of Law, and students of The Future...)