President Biden has taken some steps to create a concrete AI policy in the U.S., but there has been plenty to argue about in terms of how effective the administration's moves have been. Experts agree that there are likely to be more big changes once Donald Trump begins his second term.

Biden's 2023 executive order on AI, which put in place some safeguards intended to mitigate societal risks stemming from increasingly powerful AI technology, will most like be thrown out, possibly as soon as Trump takes office.

Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs and senior research associate in the Autonomous Systems Policy Institute, places some blame on the Biden administration for the likely rollback of the only meaningful AI rules in the U.S.—the 2023 executive order—because of the politicized nature of the document. He notes the inclusion of “equity” requirements in the AI executive order, and direct references to earlier executive action on racial equity, as putting a giant target on the policy's back.

“If they had strictly stuck to doing technocratic policy and formulated this as a matter of bureaucratic procedure, avoiding terms to which the Republican administration is allergic, maybe that executive order could have stood a chance,” Himmelreich suggests.

Read more in The Register article, “Prepare for an AI policy upending under Trump, say experts.”