In an increasingly polarized political environment, concerns about staying ahead of China have been one of the few areas of common ground among elected Republicans and Democrats. U.S. artificial intelligence policy may be the most tangible result of that overlap, as neither political party has become synonymous with either regulating or supporting the technology.
In 2020, AI hadn’t yet been catapulted into the mainstream when voters elected President Joe Biden for what would turn out to be a single four-year term. ChatGPT was launched two years later, in November 2022, and Washington’s reaction since has not followed party lines.
After a March 2023 call to “pause” training of powerful AI systems by some in the industry failed, and less than a year after ChatGPT was released, the Biden administration issued an executive order on AI in October 2023. The measure is the most comprehensive action the United States has taken so far to address the new technology, with the White House saying it struck a balance between ensuring “AI safety and security” while still promoting “innovation and competition” and advancing “American leadership around the world.”
Another Biden executive order directed the Department of Treasury to establish rules prohibiting or restricting the export of products in three categories, including AI. The rule was finalized in October and reflects the administration’s concerns about China gaining an advantage with the aid of exported U.S. AI technologies.
The Biden AI EO was panned in the 2024 Republican Party platform, stating, “We will repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology.”
The platform goes on to declare, “In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing.”
In 2023, President-elect Donald Trump told a political rally audience in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, “When I’m reelected, I will cancel Biden’s artificial intelligence executive order and ban the use of AI to censor the speech of American citizens on day one.”
A possible casualty is the AI Safety Institute. Housed inside the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the group sets voluntary standards for safety and security in AI and could be wiped out with the repeal of the Biden EO. Alternatively, it could be codified and funded if Congress chooses to do so before the end of the year. Major AI companies, including Amazon, Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, and IBM, recently wrote congressional leaders imploring them to make the office permanent, arguing that the institute’s work being done in the U.S. is a global advantage.
While Trump has said he views China as the “primary threat” in the race for global AI dominance, the specifics of the new administration’s AI policy remain unclear.
Trump supporters include enthusiastic AI accelerationist and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who penned his Techno-Optimist Manifesto in 2023. In it, he makes the case for technological development through free markets and highlights the importance of AI. Andreessen will be a staunch voice for a “hands-off” approach to regulating the technology.
Also in Trump’s inner circle is celebrity billionaire Elon Musk, owner of Tesla, social media company X, and xAI, which makes the generative AI Grok. In the same month Musk founded xAI in 2023, he signed on to the petition to pause AI development above certain levels.
Congress is also still deliberating on the way forward for AI policy.
In February of this year, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) established a bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence “to produce a comprehensive report that will include guiding principles, forward-looking recommendations and bipartisan policy proposals developed in consultation with committees of jurisdiction.”
Led by Reps. Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Jay Obernolte (R-CA), the task force is comprised of 12 Democratic and 12 Republican representatives. Obernolte told a tech crowd in September that the report would be released by the end of this year and, “[T]his is not going to be one, 3,000-page AI bill like the European Union passed last year, and then we’re done.”
He continued, “I think that AI is a complicated enough topic and a topic that is changing quickly enough that it merits an approach of incrementalism.”
A major point of contention for any legislation may be the federal preemption of state AI regulations. While Congress has taken a deliberative approach to AI policy, many state legislatures have rushed in to fill the regulatory void, for better or for worse. Approximately 750 bills are pending across the nation to regulate AI, and dozens have already passed into law. That patchwork of compliance presents a serious threat to the development of AI and will likely produce strong pressure to have a national AI policy framework preempt state regulations.
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Prominent senators from both parties have publicly acknowledged the importance of U.S. dominance over China with AI development, and members of both sides of the political aisle in the House seem to agree. Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK) told a hearing, “The country that leads in commercial and military applications will have a decisive advantage in global economic and geopolitical competition.”
Whether the bipartisan accord for the shared goal of U.S. superiority will hold when the details of how to achieve that end are needed remains to be seen.