s AI capabilities grow at an exponential rate, U.S. regulators have proposed a federal framework to regulate the technology and preempt state laws.

On Friday, the White House released its long-awaited National AI Policy Framework, a pitch that aims to declaw state regulatory efforts, with the administration claiming these laws “impose undue burdens” and looking to replace them with “minimally burdensome” regulation.

Though the document claims that a national standard should “respect key principles of federalism” and not undermine states' traditional powers to enforce their own laws, the White House’s framework suggests that states should not be able to regulate AI development at all, as it is an “inherently interstate phenomenon” with national and foreign implications.

The framework also claims that state laws should not be permitted to penalize AI developers for a third party’s unlawful conduct involving their models. According to Politico, the administration will publish an evaluation of existing state AI law that it deems “onerous.”

The most optimistic take in the industry is that it will kickstart some good conversations:

As for federal regulation, the framework also outlined several major risks it aims for new laws to address, including:

• Protecting children by requiring “age-assurance tools,” parental account controls and strong protections against sexual and self-harm-related content
• Safeguarding and "strengthening American communities” with utility ratepayer limits and stronger law enforcement tools to fight “AI-enabled scams against seniors”
• Supporting a “balanced approach” to intellectual property that allows AI to train on copyrighted materials while also strengthening creator rights
• Preventing AI from being used to suppress free speech
• Creating “regulatory sandboxes” and federal datasets to keep the U.S. at the forefront and “reduce regulatory barriers to innovation”
• And creating an “AI-ready workforce” by expanding training programs and AI-related apprenticeships

Michael Kratsios, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a post on X that the framework seeks to ensure “every American benefits from AI.”

Though the framework addresses some of the biggest risks that this technology poses, it’s also full of contradictions, Samir Jain, VP of policy at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement to The Deep View. For instance, the document says that the government should not coerce AI companies to ban content based on partisan or ideological agendas, “yet the Administration’s ‘woke AI’ Executive Order this summer does exactly that,” said Jain.

“The White House’s high-level AI framework contains some sound statements of principles, but its usefulness to lawmakers is limited by its internal contradictions and failure to grapple with key tensions between various approaches to important topics,” Jain said.

Our Deeper View

Government regulation has long been behind the curve of technology development. AI, however, is moving at a far more exponential pace than any previous tech boom, creating even more urgency. Regulation matters in protecting people from the risks that this tech poses, and so far, states have been on the front lines of those protections. Federal regulation and consensus on how to govern AI may need to happen sooner rather than later, or else leave us open to the risks from the worst possible outcomes. Whether Washington can forge the kind of bipartisan consensus needed to enact broad AI governance that can avoid being whipsawed by partisan shifts in power remains an open question.