Taxpayer Watchdog Responds to New AI Executive Order

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Kara Zupkus (224) 456-0257

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the White House released an executive order (EO) to govern artificial intelligence (AI), ordering the creation of a voluntary review process for covered AI models “to promote secure innovation and strengthen the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure.” After much confusion in recent months, the order does not impose a heavy-handed review process for new models, such as the pre-approval model used by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for new drugs.

In response to the EO, David B. McGarry, Research Director of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, offered the following statement:

“The executive order’s best feature is found in the policies it declined to impose. President Trump rightly rejected proposals from members of his administration to create a prescriptive approval process for new models, which would have impeded innovation as surely as the FDA’s approval process impedes the development of new medicines.

“The order’s worst features, however, are also to be found in its silences. Much uncertainty surrounds which models will be deemed ‘covered models,’ how the review process will be constructed, and just how ‘voluntary’ this new process will prove to be. The White House left much discretion to executive agencies, which was also a feature of former President Biden’s AI policy. The aims of the order are reasonable: maintaining robust cybersecurity is a pressing interest of the federal government. But the order’s implementation may prove far more dangerous to innovation than might be assumed from its plain text.

“The missing character in this drama is Congress. Several proposals to regulate AI are circulating on Capitol Hill, and more are on the way. In the end, it is not the Article II branch, but the Article I branch, that ought to determine what regulatory standards and mechanisms will govern AI. TPA urges Congress to pass a single, sensible AI framework, favorable to innovation and consistent with tried-and-true principles of American technology policy.”

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The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis, and dissemination of information on the government’s impact on the economy.