By JONATHAN J. COOPER and JESSE BEDAYN, Associated Press
President Donald Trump signed an executive order this week aimed at blocking states from crafting their own regulations for artificial intelligence, saying the burgeoning industry is at risk of being stifled by a patchwork of onerous rules while in a battle with Chinese competitors for supremacy.
Thursday’s order is likely to put Colorado in the crosshairs as one of four states that have passed AI laws, though its measure setting guardrails around the use of AI has yet to take effect. The order refers to Colorado’s impending law, which attempts to prevent certain forms of discrimination using AI, as an example of what White House officials see as “requiring entities to embed ideological bias within models.”
Members of Congress from both parties, as well as civil liberties and consumer rights groups, have pushed for more regulations on AI, saying there is not enough oversight for the powerful technology. Critics of the new order worry that banning state regulation would amount to a favor for big AI companies, which enjoy little to no oversight, and that Trump’s effort oversteps the limits of presidential power.
But Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that “there’s only going to be one winner” as nations race to dominate artificial intelligence, and China’s central government gives its companies a single place to go for government approvals.
“We have the big investment coming, but if they had to get 50 different approvals from 50 different states, you can forget it because it’s impossible to do,” Trump said.
The executive order directs the attorney general to create a new task force to challenge state laws, and directs the Commerce Department to draw up a list of problematic regulations.
It also threatens to restrict funding from a broadband deployment program and other grant programs to states with AI laws. Colorado recently announced it expected to be awarded $420 million from one of the programs cited in the order, the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program.
David Sacks, a venture capitalist with extensive AI investments who is leading Trump’s policies on cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, said the Trump administration would only push back on “the most onerous examples of state regulation” but would not oppose “kid safety” measures.
The order begins a process to develop a lighter-touch regulatory framework for the whole country that would override state AI laws, potentially with some action from Congress. It does not seek to preempt some laws states have adopted, such as AI-related child safety protections and provisions on how state governments can procure and use AI.
Shatorah Roberson, a senior policy counsel at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, says that in this case, it’s clear that the president does not have the authority to preempt the state laws the order is intended to target.
“This is an issue of our democracy, and the president through executive order can’t just preempt state laws without going through the democratic process,” she said.
What states have proposed
Four states — Colorado, California, Utah and Texas — have passed laws that set some rules for AI across the private sector, according to the International Association of Privacy Professionals.
Those laws include limiting the collection of certain personal information and requiring more transparency from companies.
The laws are in response to AI that already pervades everyday life. The technology helps make consequential decisions for Americans, including who gets a job interview, an apartment lease, a home loan and even certain medical care. But research has shown that it can make mistakes in those decisions, including by prioritizing a particular gender or race.
States’ more ambitious AI regulation proposals require private companies to provide transparency and assess the possible risks of discrimination from their AI programs.
Beyond those more sweeping rules, many states have regulated parts of AI: barring the use of deepfakes in elections and to create nonconsensual porn, for example, or putting rules in place around the government’s own use of AI.
In Colorado, the legislature passed a law in 2024 to regulate the growing technology, with the expectation that it would be tweaked in future years before being fully implemented. How to adjust the law quickly became a focal point for the industry and for Gov. Jared Polis, who earned his fortune in the tech industry. They fretted that too-harsh regulations, including liability requirements and a need for risk assessments and disclosures, could stifle the nascent industry.
The deadlock most recently led to another delay in the implementation of Colorado’s law, this time kicking the effective date to June 30 — which will be two years after Polis signed the initial law.
Polis, meanwhile, has convened a working group of AI developers, users and consumer advocates to plot a path forward for state regulations.
Denver Post staff writer Nick Coltrain contributed to this story.
