It’s budget time, and you know what that means: The GOP is sneaking goodies for corporations into the reconciliation bill. This time, it’s a big giveaway to artificial intelligence companies, many of which made massive contributions to President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee wants to appropriate $500 million to replace or modernize databases with “state-of-the-art commercial artificial intelligence systems” and to adopt AI to “increase operational efficiency.” Half a billion dollars seems like a lot, but that money is just for one agency: the Department of Commerce.
And it gets worse.
The bill would ban state and local governments from enforcing any law or regulation on AI for the next 10 years. Arguably, that’s worth far more than $500 million, as it would essentially let AI companies run roughshod for a decade without any restrictions.
We already know what unregulated AI looks like, thanks to—of course—Elon Musk. His facility in Memphis that powers the racist chatbot Grok is currently spewing literal tons of nitrogen oxide all over a predominantly Black neighborhood. But because Musk’s methane gas turbines are supposedly temporary, he didn’t have to get any permits, despite emitting more pollution than the gas-fired power plant and oil refinery nearby. But there’s no indication when this temporary state of affairs will end.
Musk hasn’t responded to questions about why his plant doesn’t have pollution controls, and really, why would he? He’s got the full faith of the Trump administration behind him, and they’re certainly not going to rein him in on anything as petty as making it hard for people to breathe.
Of course, AI companies don’t just need the government to shower them with cash and let them evade pollution laws. They also need a vast amount of data to train their AI models, which they don’t particularly want to pay for.
Instead, they want the Trump administration to let them ignore copyright protections because that’s the only way the United States can remain the global AI leader. It’s neat how AI companies think that they should profit from their efforts, but actual creators should not.
Given the weekend firing of U.S. Copyright Office Director Shira Perlmutter, the Trump administration is likely wholly on board with this idea. That firing came almost immediately on the heels of the Copyright Office’s report on copyright protections and AI, raising suspicions that even data-driven policy work is now politically risky. We can’t have the government acknowledging that, now, can we?
Protecting AI companies from spending their own money or obeying pesky regulations is just the latest iteration of the Trump administration’s AI fever dreams. AI is supposed to increase government efficiency by ferreting out fraud and replacing government workers. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has already deployed AI at the Environmental Protection Agency to spy on employeesincluding looking for anti-Trump sentiments.
It’s not clear how that sort of witch hunt increases efficiency, but at least it will cost a lot of money and line the pockets of some already stupendously wealthy people. And, really, isn’t that what the Trump administration is all about?
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