The White House’s AI Plan Is Anything But

The White House has concepts of a plan on artificial intelligence. They were unveiled on Friday in the administration’s National Policy Framework for AI, a “road map” to legislation, Republican House leaders said, designed to help the US “beat” China and help protect children. In reality, it’s a blueprint for AI companies to carry on with business as usual. The only thing standing between them and their ambitious goals is the states that are enacting their own rules — as they should continue to do so.

The AI framework comes nine months after the ruckus caused by a proposed amendment to the Big Beautiful Bill Act that would have barred states from being able to put their own protections in place for 10 years. That effort failed after senators of both parties voted overwhelmingly against it. A follow-up attempt to shoehorn it into a defense spending bill suffered the same fate. In December, President Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening to withhold billions of dollars in broadband infrastructure funding from states that continued to pursue AI rulemaking. It doesn’t seem to have worked as a deterrent, with states moving forward with measures like California’s SB 53 and New York’s RAISE Act, two laws that impose transparency requirements on frontier AI models.