TRUMP RESCINDS BIDEN'S EXECUTIVE ORDER ON AI SAFETY IN ATTEMPT TO DIVERGE FROM HIS PREDECESSOR

Hours after returning to the White House, President Donald Trump made a symbolic mark on the future of artificial intelligence by repealing former President Joe Biden's guardrails for the fast-developing technology.But what comes next from Trump and how it will diverge from how his predecessor sought to safeguard Al technology remains unclear. The new administration didn't respond to requests for comment about the repealed Biden policy and even some of Trump's most enthusiastic tech industry supporters aren't so sure.

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“I think that the previous order had a lot in it,” said Alexandr Wang, the CEO of Al company Scale, describing Biden's 2023 executive order on Al as overly lengthy but declining to name what about it was harmful. “It's hard to comment on each individual piece of it. There's certainly some parts of it that we strongly agree with.”

Wang, who traveled to Washington to attend Trump's inaugural festivities, is also optimistic that better things are yet to come. He and other Silicon Valley leaders who previously worked with the Biden administration have embraced Trump and hope to guide his approach toward one with fewer restrictions.

In its early days, Trump's team has already “set the tone for a very productive administration with a lot of deep collaboration between industry and government,” Wang said.

NOT MUCH LEFT TO REPEAL?

Much of Biden's order set in motion a sprint across government agencies to study's Al impact on everything from cybersecurity risks to its effects on education, workplaces and public benefits. That work is done.

“The reports have been written and the recommendations generated, and they’re available for everyone to build on,” said Alexandra Reeve Givens, CEO of the nonprofit Center for Democracy & Technology. “The executive order’s work is completed, whether or not it’s rescinded.”

Those reports are helping to inform the private sector as well as federal agencies and state governments, she said.

Not only that, but much of the standard-setting established by Biden’s order followed the path of earlier AI executive orders signed by Trump in his first term that carried over into the Biden administration.