{"id":19869,"date":"2025-07-24T08:28:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T08:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/19869\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T08:28:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T08:28:10","slug":"trump-signs-executive-orders-targeting-woke-ai-models-and-regulation-donald-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/19869\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump signs executive orders targeting \u2018woke\u2019 AI models and regulation | Donald Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> on Wednesday signed a trio of executive orders that he vowed would turn the United States into an \u201cAI export powerhouse\u201d, including one targeting what the White House described as \u201cwoke\u201d artificial intelligence<\/a> models.<\/p>\n

During remarks at an AI summit in Washington, Trump decried \u201cwoke Marxist lunacy in the AI models\u201d, before signing the orders on stage at the Mellon Auditorium.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce and for all, we are getting rid of woke. Is that OK?\u201d Trump said, drawing loud applause from the audience of AI industry leaders. He then asserted<\/a> that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had \u201cestablished toxic diversity, equity and inclusion ideology as a guiding principle of American AI development\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you immediately knew that was the end of your development,\u201d he said, eliciting laughter.<\/p>\n

The new order requires any artificial intelligence company receiving federal funding to maintain politically neutral AI models free of \u201cideological dogmas such as DEI\u201d \u2013 putting pressure on an industry increasingly seeking to partner with government agencies. It is part of the Trump administration\u2019s broader anti-diversity campaign that has also targeted federal agencies, academic institutions and the military.<\/p>\n

While the directive emphasizes that the federal government \u201cshould be hesitant to regulate the functionality of AI models in the private marketplace\u201d, it asserts that public procurement carries \u201cthe obligation not to procure models that sacrifice truthfulness and accuracy to ideological agendas\u201d. The metrics of what make an AI model politically biased are contentious and open to interpretation, however, and therefore may allow the administration to use the order to target companies at its discretion.<\/p>\n

The other orders were aimed at expediting federal permitting for datacentre infrastructure and promoting the export of American AI models. The executive actions coincide with the Trump administration\u2019s release of a broader, 24-page \u201cAI action plan\u201d that seeks to cement the US\u2019s \u201cglobal dominance\u201d in artificial intelligence as well as expand the use of AI in the federal government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinning this competition will be a test of our capacities unlike anything since the dawn of the space age,\u201d Trump declared, adding: \u201cWe need US technology companies to be all-in for America. We want you to put America first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier on Wednesday, the White House unveiled its long-promised \u201caction plan\u201d, titled \u201cWinning the Race\u201d, that was announced shortly after Trump took office and repealed a Biden administration order on AI that mandated some safeguards and standards on the technology. It outlines the White House\u2019s vision for governing artificial intelligence in the US, vowing to speed up the development of the fast-growing technology by removing \u201cred tape and onerous regulation\u201d.<\/p>\n

During his remarks, Trump also proposed a more nominal change. \u201cI can\u2019t stand it,\u201d he said, referring to the use of the word \u201cartificial\u201d. \u201cI don\u2019t even like the name, you know? I don\u2019t like anything that\u2019s artificial. So could we straighten that out, please? We should change the name. I actually mean that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not artificial. It\u2019s genius,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

A second order Trump signed on Wednesday calls for deregulating AI development, increasing the building of datacentres and removing environmental protections that could hamper their construction.<\/p>\n

Datacentres that house the servers for AI models require immense amounts of water and energy to function, as well as produce greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental groups have warned about harmful increases to air and noise pollution as tech companies build more facilities, while a number of local communities have pushed back<\/a> against their construction.<\/p>\n

In addition to easing permitting laws and emphasizing the need for more energy infrastructure, both measures that tech companies have lobbied for, Trump\u2019s order also frames the AI race as a contest for geopolitical dominance. China has invested billions into the manufacturing of AI chips and datacentres to become a competitor in the industry, while Chinese companies such as Deepseek have released AI models that rival Silicon Valley\u2019s output.<\/p>\n

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While Trump\u2019s plan seeks to address fears of China as an AI superpower, the Trump administration\u2019s move against \u201cwoke\u201d AI echoes longstanding conservative grievances against tech companies, which Republicans have accused of possessing liberal biases and suppressing rightwing ideology. As generative AI has become more prominent in recent years, that criticism has shifted from concerns over internet search results or anti-misinformation policies into anger against AI chatbots and image generators.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest critics of perceived liberal bias in AI is Elon Musk, who has vowed to make his xAI company and its Grok chatbot \u201canti-woke\u201d. Although Musk and Donald Trump are still locked in a feud<\/a> after their public falling out last month, Musk may stand to benefit from Trump\u2019s order given his emphasis on controlling AI\u2019s political outputs.<\/p>\n

Musk has consistently criticized AI models, including his own, for failing to generate what he sees as sufficiently conservative views. He has claimed that xAI has reworked Grok to eliminate liberal bias, and the chatbot has occasionally posted white supremacist and antisemitic content. In May, Grok affirmed white supremacist conspiracies<\/a> that a \u201cwhite genocide\u201d was taking place in South Africa and said it was \u201cinstructed by my creators\u201d to do so. Earlier this month, Grok also posted pro-Nazi ideology and rape fantasies<\/a> while identifying itself as \u201cMechaHitler\u201d until the company was forced to intervene.<\/p>\n

Despite Grok\u2019s promotion of Nazism, xAI was among several AI companies that the Department of Defense awarded with up to $200m contracts<\/a> this month to develop tools for the government. OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, all of which have their own proprietary AI models, were the other recipients.<\/p>\n

Conservatives have singled out incidents such as Google\u2019s Gemini image generator inaccurately producing racially diverse depictions<\/a> of historical figures such as German second world war soldiers as proof of liberal bias. AI experts have meanwhile long warned about problems of racial and gender bias in the creation of artificial intelligence models, which are trained on content such as social media posts, news articles and other forms of media that may contain stereotypes or discriminatory material that gets incorporated into these tools. Researchers have found that these biases have persisted despite advancements in AI<\/a>, with models often replicating existing social prejudices in their outputs.<\/p>\n

Conflict over biases in AI have also led to turmoil in the industry. In 2020, the co-lead of Google\u2019s \u201cethical AI\u201d team Timnit Gebru said she was fired<\/a> after she expressed concerns of biases being built into the company\u2019s AI models and a broader lack of diversity efforts at the company. Google said she resigned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a trio of executive orders that he vowed would turn the United States…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-19869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}