Artificial intelligence policy, the Trump Administration, and federalism

This essay considers the implications of the Trump Administration’s deregulatory approach to AI policy. The national AI policy framework in the United States has swung considerably from the first Trump Administration, to Biden, to a return to Trump. National AI policy remains weak, however, and the essay thus considers the implications of that weakness for ethics, privacy, data security, and equity. It then considers the central role that the states are playing in experimenting with AI policy–both regulatory and enabling. The essay concludes with observations about what the future of AI policy may look like and how this affects the study of both AI regulation and federalism.