If Donald Trump wins the US presidential election in November, the guardrails could come off of artificial intelligence development, even as the dangers of defective AI models grow increasingly serious. Trump’s election to a second term would dramatically reshape—and possibly cripple—efforts to protect Americans from the many dangers of poorly designed artificial intelligence, including misinformation, discrimination, and the poisoning of algorithms used in technology like autonomous vehicles.
The federal government has begun overseeing and advising AI companies under an executive order that President Joe Biden issued in October 2023. But Trump has vowed to repeal that order, with the Republican Party platform saying it “hinders AI innovation” and “imposes Radical Leftwing ideas” on AI development.
But tech and cyber experts warn that eliminating the [executive order’s] safety and security provisions would undermine the trustworthiness of AI models that are increasingly creeping into all aspects of American life, from transportation and medicine to employment and surveillance. The upcoming presidential election, in other words, could help determine whether AI becomes an unparalleled tool of productivity or an uncontrollable agent of chaos.
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