AI Executive Order Targets State AI Laws With a Litigation Task Force

What the order directs

• AI Litigation Task Force: within 30 days, the Attorney General must set up a task force to challenge state AI laws that conflict with the order's policy.
• Review of state laws: within 90 days, the Secretary of Commerce must publish an evaluation identifying onerous state AI laws, including laws that require AI models to alter truthful outputs or compel disclosures that may raise First Amendment issues.
• Broadband funding: Commerce must issue a policy notice making states with onerous AI laws ineligible for certain remaining funds under the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) programme, to the extent federal law allows. Other agencies must consider conditioning discretionary grants in a similar way.
• FCC and FTC: the FCC is to begin a proceeding on a federal reporting and disclosure standard for AI models that would preempt conflicting state laws, and the FTC is to issue a policy statement on how its powers over deceptive practices apply to AI models.
• Legislation: White House advisers must prepare a legislative recommendation for a uniform federal framework that would preempt conflicting state AI laws.

Limits and carve-outs

The proposed federal framework should not preempt otherwise lawful state laws on child safety, state procurement and use of AI, or AI compute and data centre infrastructure other than general permitting reforms. The order must be implemented consistently with applicable law and creates no enforceable rights. The accompanying fact sheet refers to proposals in California and Colorado as examples of state approaches the administration objects to.

What it means for businesses

The AI executive order does not itself repeal any state law, so state AI statutes remain in force unless they are struck down by courts or preempted by federal legislation or valid federal rules. Developers and deployers of AI in the United States should continue to comply with state requirements while tracking the task force's litigation, the Commerce evaluation and any FCC or FTC action over the coming months.

Sources

• The White House: Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence
• The White House: Fact Sheet on a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence