Trump reverses ‘critical’ AI safety order on first day in office

Amid a flurry of repeals and rollbacks to his predecessor’s executive orders during his first day back in office, Donald Trump has announced that he’s reversed an executive order from former-President Biden once deemed “critical” by Microsoft. The order sought to protect workers, consumers and national security interests from potential harms caused by emerging AI technologies.

The previous administration released the order in October 2023, dubbed the “Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.” The order concedes that generative AI systems offer both “promise and peril” to America and could potentially, “exacerbate societal harms such as fraud, discrimination, [and] bias.” Links to the newly-cancelled executive orders now return 404 error pages on the White House website.

In his order, Biden directed the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to provide guidance to companies to help identify and correct instances of bias in their large language models. The order also sought to prioritize American workers by ensuring jobs would not be lost due to AI, promoted personal information protections, and advocated for open and equitable AI marketplaces.

This move comes amidst Trump’s busy first day back in power, wherein he rescinded some 75 executive orders from the previous president. In Tuesday’s announcement, the Trump administration also argued that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have “corrupted” U.S. institutions by “replacing hard work, merit, and equality with a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy.”

Trump’s actions are not unexpected, however, as he had campaigned heavily on the promise to roll back consumer AI protections throughout the 2024 election cycle. He stated that he would “support AI development rooted in free speech and human flourishing” but, as with his similar claims about replacing the Affordable Care Act during his previous term, Trump has not provided any details on what that alternative would actually look like. Whether Biden’s AI protections are gone for good remains to be seen as Trump himself has previously claimed that generative AI technologies are a “superpower” that offer “alarming” potential.