President Donald Trump this week signed a series of executive orders and released an action plan aimed at the artificial intelligence industry.
Much of Trump’s plan gives the green light to the tech industry, according to Axios. It focuses on speeding up AI innovation, rather than addressing concerns such as model safety, environmental risks and the potential for job losses.
One of the executive orders Trump signed would speed the permitting process for major AI infrastructure projects and another focused on promoting export of U.S. AI products, according to The New York Times.
The approach signals the administration has embraced the tech industry’s arguments that it must be allowed to work with few guardrails, the Times said. That’s a different take than some other governments that have approved AI regulations, including the European Commission.
“America is the country that started the AI race,” Trump said Wednesday, according to the Times. “And as president of the United States, I’m here today to declare that America is going to win it.”
But Trump is also taking aim at the ideology of AI models by attempting to dictate how chatbots deal with contentious political issues, Axios said.
One of his orders requires that any model bought by a federal agency be ideologically neutral. It calls for AI language models to “prioritize historical accuracy, scientific inquiry, and objectivity,” but also singles out diversity, equity and inclusion as an example of “ideological dogma,” according to Axios.
“Demanding that developers refrain from ‘ideological bias’ or be ‘neutral’ in their models is an impossible, vague standard that the Administration will be able to weaponize for its own ideological ends,” the Center for Democracy and Technology said, according to Axios.
The requirements on ideology pose technical challenges and raise questions about who decides what counts as an acceptable answer on some issues, according to Axios.
Trump decried “woke Marxist lunacy in the AI models” before signing his orders, according to The Guardian.
“Once and for all, we are getting rid of woke. Is that OK?” Trump said, drawing loud applause from the audience of AI leaders, according to The Guardian.
He also said former President Joe Biden had “established toxic diversity, equity and inclusion ideology as a guiding principle of American AI development”.
The growth of artificial intelligence is expected in the long run to boost business for chip manufacturers like Micron Technology. The company is planning to build a massive complex of chip plants in the town of Clay, north of Syracuse.
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