Trump signs AI executive order, legality challenged

President Donald Trump has inked an executive order that would prohibit state and local governments from enacting AI regulations amid concerns surrounding its legality, according to NPR. Under the EO, the Justice Department will be mandated to create a task force that would charge states with "onerous" AI laws, with the department to be aided by the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. Trump has also ordered Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to examine the possibility of removing federal rural broadband funding from states with restrictive AI laws. However, the order will not counter AI laws concerning child safety, said Trump AI advisor David Sacks, who has been tasked to help create draft legislation alongside Congress. Such an order was noted by John Bergmayer of Public Knowledge, a nonprofit advocacy group, as a means to circumvent the authority of Congress, while countering Sacks' pronouncements that state AI laws could be overruled due to federal authority in interstate commerce regulations. "States are, in fact, allowed to regulate interstate commerce. They do it all the time. And the Supreme Court just recently said it was fine," said Bergmayer.