What does a Trump win mean for American AI Policy? This is a question that I have been asked by policymakers time and time again over the past months. With the results of the election now clear, I thought it would be prudent to write up some of the main points.

During Trump’s first term as President, he announced multiple executive orders on AI. In 2019, Trump announced an EO on “Maintaining American Leadership In Artificial Intelligence” and then in 2020 signed an EO on “Promoting the Use of Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence in the Federal Government”. Drawing on his past pro-American technology agenda and the broad support from the American tech ecosystem during this campaign cycle, it is highly likely that we will see substantial attention paid to improving and leveraging America’s technology ecosystem – domestically and globally.

In Trump’s platform, he has promised to “repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology.” I would expect Trump to deliver on this fairly early on and move the US back towards a use-case and sector-specific approach.

As Democrat-controlled states rush to announce new AI regulations in the face of a Trump presidency – something which was mentioned explicitly as a motivating factor behind the failed California bill SB 1047 – we will likely see efforts towards federal pre-emption on AI regulation. My gut feeling is that we end up much closer to the UK’s pro-innovation approach. Unlike the UK, the role of the AISI is almost certainly going to be called into question. The US AISI might continue to exist under a Trump administration, but it is unlikely to see much political support or funding.

Probably the biggest focus for the incoming Trump administration will be on ensuring American dominance in the global AI competition with a strong focus on beating China. In practice, this will likely see movement to both widen and strengthen export controls targeting China’s AI industry. While working to stymie China’s domestic AI capabilities, we will also likely see new investments internally in AI.

These investments will include unleashing the availability of American energy resources to power the growing energy needs of increasingly large data centers, investing in domestic AI R&D, and working to integrate AI into the United States’ national defense ecosystem. While it is unlikely to be the highest priority area, we will also likely see initiatives on using AI and other technology to improve the functioning of the US public sector by facilitating cuts to governmental bureaucracy. Though the Biden admin has not appointed a government CTO, this will likely change under the incoming Trump admin.

For anyone interested, I recommend reading “11 Elements of American AI Dominance.” It does a great job outlining many of these areas and the current areas of agreement and debate.

Keegan McBride is Departmental Research Lecturer in AI, Government and Policy, Oxford Internet Institute

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