140+ Groups Ask Trump to Reject Dangerous AI Moratorium Provision
Washington, D.C. — On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced a so-called “AI Action Plan” that revives a failed moratorium on state AI laws that the House and Senate overwhelmingly voted to reject earlier this month. The “AI Action Plan,” reportedly the brainchild of David Sacks and Sriram Krishnan, includes a provision that could bar states from accessing federal funds based on their “AI regulatory climate.” The AI moratorium, stripped from the “Big Beautiful Bill,” similarly used federal funding to coerce states and localities from enforcing AI laws. Also on Wednesday, Demand Progress and 142 other groups representing unions, tech workers, artists, educators and more sent a letter to president Trump voicing opposition to the AI moratorium provision in the “Action Plan.”
The following is a statement from Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at Demand Progress:
“The AI moratorium has risen from the grave, resurrected in Trump’s ‘AI Action Plan’ by Big Tech vulture capitalists. Though we are still reviewing it, it is clear that this zombie AI moratorium continues Big Tech’s relentless drive to tear down commonsense safeguards protecting Americans from half-baked ‘driverless’ cars and deepfaked revenge porn. Republicans and Democrats in Congress overwhelmingly rejected the wildly unpopular AI moratorium, so now Big Tech is doing an end-run around the democratic process by jamming it through via executive order. President Trump must reject this zombie AI moratorium and side with the American people, not the Big Tech billionaires eager to sacrifice Americans’ safety, jobs, water and power to AI.”