WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order related to AI to “make America the world capital in artificial intelligence,” his aide told reporters in the White House’s Oval Office.
The order sets a 180-day deadline for an Artificial Intelligence Action Plan to create a policy “to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.”
Trump also told his AI adviser and national security assistant to work to remove policies and regulations put in place by former President Joe Biden.
Trump on Monday revoked a 2023 executive order signed by Biden that sought to reduce the risks that artificial intelligence poses to consumers, workers and national security.
Biden’s order required developers of AI systems that pose risks to U.S. national security, the economy, public health or safety to share the results of safety tests with the U.S. government, in line with the Defense Production Act, before they were released to the public.
Trump also signed an executive order creating a cryptocurrency working group tasked with proposing a new regulatory framework for digital assets and exploring the creation of a cryptocurrency stockpile.
The much-anticipated action also ordered that banking services for crypto companies be protected, and banned the creation of central bank digital currencies that could compete with existing cryptocurrencies.
The order sees Trump fulfill a campaign trail pledge to be a “crypto president and promote the adoption of digital assets.”
That is in stark contrast to Biden’s regulators that, in a bid to protect Americans from fraud and money laundering, cracked down on crypto companies, suing exchanges Coinbase, Binance, Kraken and dozens more in federal court, alleging they were flouting U.S. laws.
The working group will be made up of the Treasury secretary, attorney general and chairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, along with other agency heads. The group is tasked with developing a regulatory framework for digital assets, including stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency typically pegged to the U.S. dollar.
The group is also set to “evaluate the potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile … potentially derived from cryptocurrencies lawfully seized by the Federal Government through its law enforcement efforts.”
In December, Trump named venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks as the crypto and artificial intelligence czar. He will chair the group, the order said.
Finally, Trump signed pardons for 23 anti-abortion protesters on Thursday in the Oval Office of the White House.
The pardons came a day before anti-abortion protesters were due to descend on Washington for the annual March for Life.
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