The White House is urging Congress to take a lighter look at AI regulations in the new legislative scheme

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Friday that Congress should “get ahead of artificial intelligence laws” that it sees as too burdensome, laying out a broad framework for how Congress can address concerns about artificial intelligence without stifling growth or innovation in the sector.

The legislative outline outlines six guiding principles for lawmakers, focusing on protecting children, preventing rising electricity costs, respecting intellectual property rights, preventing censorship, and educating Americans about the use of technology.

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House Republican leaders quickly endorsed the framework and said they were willing to work “across the aisle” to pass legislation, but doing so would be a heavy lift, requiring agreement with Senate Democrats as public divisions over AI deepen.

The announcement comes as state governments move forward with their own regulations for artificial intelligence, while civil liberties and consumer rights groups push for more robust technology regulations. The industry and the White House have opposed it, arguing that a patchwork of rules would hurt growth. Trump signed an executive order in December to prevent states from crafting their own regulations.

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“This was a response to a growing patchwork of 50 different government regulatory regimes that threaten to stifle innovation and jeopardize America’s lead in the AI ​​race,” White House AI coordinator David Sachs said in a social media post on Wednesday.

Sachs said the next step is to work with Congress to turn the administration’s principles into federal legislation.

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While passing comprehensive AI legislation will be difficult, especially in a midterm election year, the framework appears designed to appeal to some Republicans and Democrats wary of AI while focusing on broad and partisan concerns, such as the harm that AI robot chaperones could cause to children and the electricity costs of AI infrastructure.

“It basically covers all the major sticking points that I think could prevent an AI bill from getting through Congress,” said Neil Chilson, the former top Republican technology expert at the Federal Trade Commission who now leads AI policy at the Abundance Institute. “It seems to me like it’s an attempt to build a bigger tent, even if it doesn’t give everyone everything they want.”

But it has already been criticized by some Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, who said in a statement that it “failed to address key issues, including strong accountability for AI companies, under the guise of protecting children, communities and creators. Americans need to be protected — but that means nothing if we allow the AI ​​industry to become the Wild West.”

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The ability of AI legislation to pass both chambers of Congress could depend largely on the support of Republicans like US Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who introduced her own AI bill and who last year was instrumental in thwarting Trump’s previous attempt to deter state governments from regulating AI. Blackburn on Wednesday described Trump’s framework as a roadmap and welcomed the administration to the “important discussion” of passing the bill.

Four states — Colorado, California, Utah and Texas — have already passed laws setting some rules for AI across the private sector, but the White House is calling for “strong federal leadership” to make sure the public can trust how AI is used in their lives. State-level laws include limiting the collection of some personal information and requiring more transparency from companies.

With a growing backlash against data centers alongside rising energy prices, the White House had previously ramped up pressure on AI companies and the energy sector to do more to address the issue — including having AI companies sign voluntary pledges earlier this month to build their own power plants.

The Trump administration says it does not believe Congress should preempt all state regulatory powers regarding artificial intelligence, including enforcing general laws against AI developers, “to protect children, prevent fraud, and protect consumers.” It also says Congress should not interfere with local jurisdictions in deciding where to house data centers and other AI infrastructure, or how states acquire their own AI tools for law enforcement or education.

However, it states that “states should not be allowed to regulate AI development,” should not penalize AI developers for illegal third-party conduct using their products, and “should not unduly burden Americans’ use of AI for activity that would be legal if conducted without AI.”

Some AI safety advocates are pressing Blackburn and other influential Republicans to insist on more protections against the most catastrophic AI risks, such as out-of-control AI agents or the widespread replacement of human workers — which Trump’s framework does not address.

“We have companies that are explicitly hoping to replace human labor,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a former Republican strategist who now leads the Coalition for Safe AI. “Patchwork in upskilling and job training is not going to have an impact on that. I don’t think we as a country are taking this seriously enough.”

The framework aims to take a more balanced approach to another controversial topic: artificial intelligence and copyright.

He recommends not getting involved in the legal battles between artists, creators and technology companies that have ingested vast amounts of copyrighted works to build artificial intelligence systems that can generate new text, images and sound.

The Trump administration believes “that training AI models on copyrighted material does not violate copyright laws,” according to the document, but acknowledges that there are “arguments to the contrary, and therefore supports allowing the courts to resolve this issue.”

The language has been welcomed by the trade group AI Progress — a coalition that includes Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Midjourney, and OpenAI.

Technology companies are fighting dozens of copyright infringement lawsuits from writers, publishers, visual artists, music recording companies and others. The judges have largely sided with AI developers in allowing “fair use” of copyrighted works to create something new, but some have questioned how the materials were obtained. A federal judge in September approved a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and authors who allege that nearly half a million books were illegally pirated to train its chatbot.

O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.