Some artificial intelligence industry leaders hope the Trump administration will adopt more innovation-friendly policies.
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Sarah Emerson, Alex Conrad, Rashi Shrivastava, Forbes Staff
As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, Silicon Valley artificial intelligence executives and investors are hoping the new administration will make it easier and more profitable to build and sell AI startups. There is.
In public social media posts and private conversations, AI leaders are preparing for a return to deregulation, expanded chip export controls, and even outright acquisitions of AI startups by big tech companies. He said he was there. Due to the risk of surveillance under antitrust laws.
The co-founders of OpenAI and Anthropic, the leading AI research institutes that developed the popular models GPT-4 and Claude 3, have taken to social media site X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, who spread whispers about President Trump. , along with the company’s CEO and others, acknowledged the election victory. Companies with significant AI divisions, such as Google and Meta.
“It is critical that the United States maintains its leadership in AI development based on democratic values,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a post. “Anthropic will work with the Trump administration and Congress to advance U.S. leadership in AI and discuss the benefits, capabilities, and potential safety issues of frontier systems,” said Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic. he posted.
One of the frameworks that President Trump will inherit is President Biden’s landmark executive order on AI, which he has vowed to immediately rescind. In his campaign platform, President Trump said he would “repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous executive orders that stifle AI innovation and impose radical leftist ideas on the development of this technology.” “Instead, Republicans support AI development rooted in free speech and human flourishing.”
The order, issued by the Biden administration in October 2023, aimed to establish an initial regulatory framework for the generative AI boom, with a focus on safety and national security. The order required AI companies to report to the federal government about the potentially devastating risks posed by their systems, including if they fell into the wrong hands. The White House insisted the guidelines strike a balance between caution and supporting innovation, but some technology groups and lobbying coalitions criticized them as stifling and burdensome.
“Trying to pre-regulate ahead of capability only puts the United States at a disadvantage. It’s putting the cart before the horse.”
Sarah Guo, founder and managing partner of venture capital firm Conviction
Manu Sharma, CEO of AI data startup Labelbox, argued that the executive order had “heavy-handed rules” that felt “arbitrarily chosen.” “Mr. Trump should at least modify some of those elements,” he said. Another co-founder of a major AI startup, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, told Forbes he believes the Biden administration is seduced by “doomsayers” in its policy decisions. . They said it would be “better for America” to repeal the order and replace it with new policies under the Trump administration.
“Trump has articulated a more innovation-friendly approach to regulating AI,” said Sarah Guo, founder and managing partner of venture capital firm Conviction and a prolific AI investor. ” he said. “I think this makes sense. Trying to pre-regulate ahead of capability just puts the United States at a disadvantage. It’s putting the cart before the horse.”
If Biden’s executive order is rescinded, it could also threaten the National Institute for AI Safety, which was established by the executive order and is tasked with safely advancing the deployment and collaboration of AI. Members of the consortium of companies and research institutions include OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and Meta. In August, OpenAI and Anthropic announced an agreement with the institute to provide early access to major new models for feedback. This year, OpenAI supported the Future of AI Innovation Act, which permanently establishes an AI Safety Institute as part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The bill was introduced by the Senate Commerce Committee in July, but has not yet received a vote from the full chamber.
Irene Solaiman, head of global policy at Hugging Face, told Forbes there are many AI experts ready to assist the new administration. Solaiman added that during his first term, President Trump focused on “field, credibility and American values.” “That said, we live in a different era with AI and the world. National security is a central concern in both the use and abuse of AI. Maintaining technological leadership requires Meeting energy needs is a top priority, as is the need to foster innovation.”
Mr. Trump has already begun to surround himself with AI industry figures, CEOs, and business leaders. According to Politico, the leaders on technology policy issues for Trump’s transition team will be J.D. Vance economic advisor Gail Slater and Scale AI managing director Michael Kratsios. Kratsios previously served as chief technology officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and before that worked at Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm Thiel Capital.
Musk, along with Palantir advisor Jacob Helberg, is reportedly part of a small group of people who have consulted with former and future presidents on issues such as AI. Mr. Musk has previously taken a pro-regulatory stance in discussions about AI surveillance. Last year, he warned senators on Capitol Hill about the “civilizational risks” that AI poses to society. Musk also supported California’s polarizing AI safety bill, SB 1047, calling it a “tough decision” that “will probably upset some people.” (Governor Gavin Newsom later vetoed the bill.)
Dan Hendricks, director of the Center for AI Safety (CAIS) and an AI advisor to Mr. Musk, said that “the last Trump administration made significant progress toward good AI governance,” including early efforts on semiconductor export controls, international cooperation, and AI risk management standards. We have made important progress.” Model Institute, xAI. “We hope that the next administration will continue to prioritize addressing the risks that AI poses to national security,” he said.
The parallel issues of chips and export controls are also likely to become important economic pillars under the Trump administration. Even before his re-election, AI companies and founders have been pushing for development policies that favor U.S. manufacturing and innovation. In a Washington Post op-ed in July, OpenAI’s Altman wrote that there is a need to “develop a coherent trade and foreign policy on AI,” including policies on foreign investment in AI systems and export controls on technology-related items such as microchips and training data. I need to,” he wrote.
Another area of optimism for AI founders and investors is a presumed change in strategy at the Federal Trade Commission, where experts widely believed that Chairwoman Lina Khan would resign. “It’s safe to assume that antitrust scrutiny will be significantly eased and Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta will be able to return to serious acquisitions,” said Rob Toews, a partner at Radical Ventures and an AI investor. I think so.”
Tooze predicted there will no longer be a need for “strange twists” like the pseudo-acquisitions of Adept AI and Character AI, where founders and staff joined Amazon or Google but the startups remained independent. “We’re going to see more acquisitions of AI startups,” he added. May Habib, co-founder and CEO of startup Writer, agreed that further M&A will help keep the ecosystem active. “I think this is a boon for the technology ecosystem,” she says. (Khabib disagreed with his colleagues that Trump would go out of his way to rescind Biden’s executive order, but claimed he was “in the dark.”)
The Trump administration’s AI policy will need to balance Musk’s existing safety positions with those of his running mate, Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. Vance is widely considered a supporter of open source technology. At a July Senate hearing on AI, he said he was concerned about “an attempt at preemptive overregulation that, frankly, locks in existing companies and makes it really difficult for new entrants.” . Vance’s push for open source-friendly policies could have “very significant implications” for startups, one AI founder said. But on the other hand, Mr. Vance has supported some of Mr. Khan’s antitrust actions at the FTC. “It’s a little confusing,” said one prominent AI investor.
Eliminating more, but not all, “red tape” may be the desired outcome. In the weeks before the election, a16z partner and open source evangelist Martin Casado touted the idea of leaving it up to academia to decide what kind of regulation is needed. “I think it’s just important that we want to regulate the right things. I think it’s important that we actually stick to the principles when we think about these things,” he said at the TC Disrupt conference.
“The question is not whether AI will be regulated, but will the United States have a seat at the table creating these regulations, or will we let other countries write the rules for this powerful technology?”
Adam Grieve, Founder and CEO of AI Safety Lab FAR AI
Certain industries will seek guidance from federal regulators. Andreas Klebe, CEO of Corti, who recently relocated his Danish AI startup to the US, said: “I’m sometimes in awe and a little crazy at how low compliance is in the US.” There is,” he said. For healthcare startups like Corti, Crave argued that regulatory “clarity” is key to improving patient care. “Our guess is that they will be less involved with Trump and more industry-friendly,” he added. “Compliance makes sense when it makes sense, as in the case of patients. But where you put the burden is going to be a big question.”
On the international stage, President Trump’s colleagues are also likely to be eager to see how his AI policies take shape. Adam Grieve, founder and CEO of the AI Safety Institute FAR AI, said the UK and European Union will continue to pursue their own regulatory frameworks. “Given the importance of national security, the (Trump) administration will likely want to continue many of the bipartisan agreements on AI that it has reached over the past two years,” he said. “The question is not whether AI will be regulated, but will the United States have a seat at the table creating these regulations, or will we let other countries write the rules for this powerful technology?”
Another investor, who works closely with one of Silicon Valley’s leading AI institutes, warned that it could be a while before Trump and his team decide on a course. “It’s very early to see what the campaign rhetoric and policies were,” they said. “That should be a plus because Trump is more of a capitalist and wants to make sure the U.S. stays ahead of China. But he, and any politician, is more of a capitalist. We have a pretty steep road to understanding AI well enough to understand it.”
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