The AI Dangers of a Second Trump Presidency

Alondra Nelson and Ami Fields-Meyer both served in the White House as technology policy advisers to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Last week, Republicans gathered in Milwaukee to nominate former President Donald Trump and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance and to formally adopt a party platform, parts of which were reportedly drafted and edited by Trump himself. Out of step with both Democratic and Republican platforms of the past (except for 2020, when there was no new Republican platform at all), this one, rather than asserting a vision for America’s future, is a list of grievances that closely mirror the GOP standard bearer’s most bombastic rally lines. Tucked in among this sweeping inventory of outlandish complaints and threats: Trump’s pledge to repeal the historic White House executive order on safe, secure, and trustworthy development of artificial intelligence.

Unleash the robots.

Perhaps driven by this cynical about-face on one of the least understood but most anxiety-producing technologies of our time, or maybe by the selection of a Silicon-Valley insider as a running mate, giant campaign contributions immediately flowed from tech billionaires.

We both served in the White House as technology policy advisers to President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. Both of us were at the US Embassy in London with the Vice President last November when she conveyed the administration’s principled vision for AI on the global stage. And both of us were in the East Room that same week when the President signed the directive on AI. In want of leadership from Congress, the Biden-Harris administration laid out a serious, rigorous, comprehensive theory of AI governance–offering a framework for responsibly stewarding the technology to unlock its potential benefits while addressing a wide swath of issues shown by survey after survey to be concerning to the American people, from job loss to data privacy to a sweeping distrust of tech companies.

The executive order dispatched the federal government to prioritize workers by investigating the labor market impacts of using this technology in the workplace and by placing workers at the table for decisions about the coming tech transition. It focused on innovation and competition, creating footholds in the AI ecosystem for small firms, startups, and workers, while encouraging federal agencies to lead by example in responsibly using AI tools to improve public services.

More consequentially, the policy ordered US agencies to smartly deploy their existing authorities to these new technologies, to keep people safe from AI harms both current and looming–from tenant screening algorithms that have been shown to discriminate against qualified homeseekers, to unchecked AI tools that some have worried could be used to engineer dangerous biological materials.

“Step aside world, the US wants to write the AI rules,” noted a Financial Times headline. Politico trumpeted that Harris “seized the agenda” on AI leadership from the UK, driving toward a balanced and responsible vision for the technology in a competitive geopolitical environment. The Washington Post characterized the executive order as the “most expansive” attempt by the US to date to grapple with AI. Civil rights leaders, many of whom had long criticized the federal government for abdicating its oversight responsibilities and allowing the tech industry to regulate itself, applauded the Administration for its forward-leaning approach to governing the impacts of AI use on discrimination and privacy.

Americans are right to feel trepidation and even fear about the potential impacts of these tools. Even Sen. Vance has voiced concerns about the unchecked power of Big Tech. And after more than a year of alarming headlines about possible AI capabilities, and two decades of disastrous self-regulation by Silicon Valley, the public is right to demand answers from elected leaders.

The Democrats’ AI policy, shaped meaningfully by the likely nominee’s ideas and priorities, sends a straightforward message to US workers, parents, entrepreneurs, and advocates: We have your back.

Trump is saying something else entirely. He asserts that supporting workers and small business, and forcefully protecting civil and consumer rights–the tenets of America’s current approach to AI–are “Radical Leftwing ideas.” Instead, Trump-allied think tanks have drawn up detailed plans to put responsibility for assessing AI tools’ safety into the hands of the powerful industry players who are building and profiting from them. When it comes to what may be the most powerful technology of our time, its attendant risks and the fulfillment of its potential opportunities, the Republican platform is clear and unambiguous: You’re on your own.

You’re on your own if Big Tech squeezes you out of the infrastructure you need to develop an AI small business. You’re on your own if you’re denied critical healthcare benefits because of a decision rendered by an AI system. If your employer uses automated tools to surveil you or stifle your union from organizing. If an AI-enabled seller has defrauded you, tough luck. If you’re a teenage girl who has been the victim of deepfake nudes, or a disabled veteran relying on lifesaving benefits that have been unjustly cut by an algorithm–sorry, you’ll just have to deal with it yourself.

As a new meta-analysis of public opinion on AI suggests, Americans want government leadership on AI. The AI executive order is the nation’s best hedge against the risks posed by AI–and the way to steer toward potential benefits. Not only must we preserve this major effort, we must support aligned legislation like the bills in California that aim to protect rights and young people’s privacy in the context of AI use.

Trump’s AI pledge is not a policy solution. It’s a campaign promise to Big Tech–one which would unleash an already out of control industry, with harms that would permeate nearly every aspect of our lives.