CHT's Response to President Trump's Executive Order on State AI Preemption

Yesterday, the Trump administration released an Executive Order that seeks to preempt state-level AI legislation. This Order poses a threat to public safety by impeding on states’ abilities to regulate AI in any meaningful capacity. And, since it does not provide a ready-to-enact national framework to replace state AI legislation, the Executive Order would create a vacuum for accountability around this risky, already-damaging new technology.

The White House’s Order arrives as Americans are actively grappling with an array of AI harms, including malicious deepfakes, fraud, and chatbot harms ranging from AI psychosis to suicide. The public already lives in a world with scarce AI protections, and month after month, we see the costs.

We see the costs in the tragic experiences of Sewell Setzer III and Adam Raine, teens who were manipulated by unregulated chatbots and coached by the products toward suicide. We see the costs in the escalating prevalence of AI-enabled fraud, with individuals struggling to find legal recourse and repair the damage that AI products have wrought on their lives. We see the concern around impacts on labor markets and future opportunities in the workforce.

This Executive Order would make it even harder to mitigate these harms and protect citizens of all ages across the country.

Given these harms, it’s no surprise that the public — and lawmakers — have already voiced strong opposition to moratoriums on state AI laws. Over the summer, the Senate voted nearly unanimously to reject a similar preemption attempt, one that would’ve paused states’ abilities to govern AI for up to 10 years. Americans forcefully spoke out against the preemption, and senators across party lines shut it down. This was a crucial bipartisan victory in the quest to keep children, workers, and communities safe as AI is developed in this nation. Americans understand the potential benefits and dangers of this technology. They believe government should help regulate AI, not provide a regulatory shield to an industry that prioritizes growth at any cost.

With social media, we learned the hard way what unleashing manipulative, unregulated technology on the public can do to the fabric of our society. But with social media, we also learned that states can lead the way in protecting consumers. This has been true across policy issues, and it’s no different with AI. States remain uniquely positioned to respond to AI’s rapid advancements, and its issue-specific impacts on communities. While federal policymakers develop national standards around AI, the White House must not interfere with states’ abilities to protect their constituents as they see fit. If the administration freezes the very policymaking mechanisms that are actually providing meaningful guardrails with AI, it will place the public in a vulnerable position, and amplify AI’s increasingly rampant harms.

Americans deserve protections that keep pace with the rapid development of AI, and right now, states are delivering those essential safeguards. The administration should support the needs of the public, rather than succumbing to the influence of the tech industry.