The Trump campaign is focusing on ways to fix our country, including the use of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for a number of reasons. AI is being used to improve education, health care, scientific research, data, automation, drug discovery, sustainability, manufacturing, retail business, banking, customer service, and prison recidivism, a topic that President Donald Trump has spoken out about the need to reduce. In 2018, his administration announced support for legislative action to reduce recidivism and called on Congress to act. The president also successfully signed the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice bill in December that year to improve criminal justice outcomes, as well as to reduce the size of the federal prison population while also creating mechanisms to maintain public safety.
As president, Trump displayed his commitment to strengthening American leadership in AI, recognizing its importance for the economy and national security. Trump issued the first ever national AI strategy, committed to doubling AI research investment, set up the first-ever national AI research institutes, launched the first AI regulatory guidance, created new international AI alliances, and set up guidance for federal use of AI.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at an event marking one year since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, in Miami.
Alex Brandon/AP Images
In 2019, Trump signed the first ever executive order on AI called the American AI Initiative. The pillars of that order were to create resources, redirect funding, retrain workers, establish standards and engage internationally.
President Trump also signed a second executive order promoting the use of “trustworthy” AI in the federal government before he left office. The order featured policies that carried over into the Biden administration. It encouraged federal agencies to continue to use AI, when appropriate, to benefit the American people. Most importantly, the order said that “ongoing adoption and acceptance of AI would depend significantly on public trust.” Agencies would be required to use AI in a manner that “fosters public trust and confidence while protecting privacy, civil rights, civil liberties, and American values, consistent with applicable law and the goals of Executive Order 13859.”
On the contrary, the Biden administration simply issued an executive order on AI that Trump has vowed to reverse once elected. Biden’s order, signed in the fall of 2023, contained a list of to-do items for federal agencies and AI designers, including “requirements for developers of dual-use foundation models to share safety test results and other information with the government under the Defense Production Act.” Trump and the Republican National Committee (RNC) have called the order dangerous—stating it will stifle innovation and impose radical liberal ideas.
Regarding the Harris campaign’s AI strategy, Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote a letter last month questioning the Biden-Harris administration’s collaboration with the RAND Corporation. As a massive think tank with strong Silicon Valley relationships, Senator Cruz pointed out that RAND not only helped draft the Biden-Harris Artificial Intelligence (AI) Executive Order but has also been a proponent of efforts by the government to censor online speech. His letter also described how RAND and left-wing groups have placed AI staffers in federal agencies. Beyond that, the letter detailed the same tech billionaire donors are financially backing the Harris’ campaign, raising flags about potential conflicts of interest with AI regulation.
Trump’s vice presidential pick JD Vance has taken a strong stance on AI policy and the need to limit regulation in a Senate hearing back in July. Vance has bona fide credentials in venture capital. The guy sees it. When AI is fully functioning, productivity can start to skyrocket; the likes of which we have never seen. And it’s axiomatic—when productivity increases, prices fall. Look no further than LASIK eye surgery; as tech advanced the procedure in these last decades, prices plummeted and quality of service improved.
As a consultant with a global firm investing in strategies that leverage AI, I’ve seen first hand the economic benefits of innovation. Such benefits include a water purification system that relies on the power of AI and its potential for improving the lives of countless people worldwide. Naturally, businesses should prefer a regulatory environment that catalyzes innovation, instead of stymieing this indispensable phenomenon.
The choice is clear, President Trump would take America forward into the future of AI. The alternative would be a continuation of the current administration’s desire to stifle innovation and increase censorship.
Dr. John L. Evans is president of Promising People, an education technology company, and a consultant for Zoetic Global.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
