How Trump’s AI Executive Order Gets It Wrong on Civil Rights

The Trump administration’s executive order seeking to preempt state and local artificial intelligence regulation targets disparate impact liability — civil rights protections against seemingly neutral policies that disproportionately harm certain groups. Their interpretation relies on a distortion of AI models, AI regulation and federal laws like the Federal Trade Commission Act that per the order may conflict with state protections against algorithmic bias.

The convoluted and forced line of reasoning that the order uses to call for preemption of such provisions demonstrates that its attack on civil rights protections seems to be more of a vehicle for the president to expand his assault on disparate impact liability than it is about AI regulation.

The order declares that action must be taken “to check the most onerous and excessive laws,” despite acknowledging the absence of a “national framework” that could conflict with state law. To manufacture such a conflict, it asserts that state AI regulation may mandate alteration of truthful AI outputs.