A deep dive into the new AI Govt Order, the way it builds on the federal energy construction created by the Biden-Schmidt EO, and why the Sacks/Thierer faction is exploiting that centralized authority—plus Hollywood’s failure to cease it.
The newly surfaced draft AI Govt Order marks the beginning of a brand new federal technique: nationwide preemption, federal supremacy, and aggressive litigation in opposition to state-level AI laws.
A lot of the scaffolding was constructed in the course of the Biden administration—significantly by means of the AI Govt Order influenced closely by Eric Schmidt and his community of AI-industry allies.
SECTION 1: PURPOSE — CENTRALIZING AI POWER IN WASHINGTON
The EO frames AI as a nationwide precedence requiring federal management and uniform nationwide requirements. This centralization echoes the Biden-Schmidt EO, which consolidated AI authority inside Commerce, NIST, and the White Home, embedding {industry} figures within the course of.
SECTION 2: AI LITIGATION TASK FORCE — TARGETING STATE AI LAWS
The EO kinds a DOJ strike unit to problem state AI laws as unconstitutional burdens on interstate commerce. That is traditional Adam Thierer ideology—anti-regulatory, anti-state, and deeply aligned with the doctrine of “permissionless innovation.”
SECTION 3: FCC AND WHITE HOUSE STANDARDS — A FEDERAL DISCLOSURE REGIME
The EO directs the FCC and the White Home AI workplace to craft a federal disclosure customary that would pre-empt inconsistent state legal guidelines. This leans on the equipment constructed by the Schmidt community within the Biden EO, which positioned Commerce and NIST because the de facto nationwide AI regulators.
SECTION 4: FEDERAL FUNDING LEVERAGE — OBEY OR LOSE MONEY
States that undertake “burdensome” AI laws could also be denied entry to federal packages corresponding to BEAD. That is pure David Sacks realpolitik: use Washington’s monetary leverage to self-discipline states and align regulatory incentives with Large Tech’s pursuits.
SECTION 5: FEDERAL SUPREMACY — THE SCHMIDT DOCTRINE COMPLETED
The EO ends by asserting that AI regulation have to be uniform and federal. That is the completion of the centralization technique launched below Biden—a construction Schmidt helped construct and that this administration now repurposes for preemption and deregulation.
THE HARD TRUTH: HOLLYWOOD LET THIS HAPPEN
There was a short window when Hollywood, the guilds, and the studios might have challenged the Biden EO—successfully killing it earlier than it centralized AI authority in DC. However exhausted from strikes and misled into pondering contracts might remedy the AI drawback, they did not act.
Large Tech didn’t fail. Chastened by Mississippi Lawyer Normal Jim Hood and a number of mulitidistrict litigation, they moved swiftly, cohesively, and strategically.
By the point Hollywood realized the scope of federalization, the equipment was already in place. The Sacks/Thierer faction merely inherited it and turned it towards their very own targets.
THE SENATE ALREADY REJECTED THIS SCHEME THE FIRST TIME AROUND— 99 TO 1
They have been warned.
There’s nonetheless no cause to not confront the Senate with its personal overwhelming vote in opposition to the OBBBA model of this preemption regime. If it was unconstitutional in legislative kind, then it’s equally unconstitutional in govt kind. The EO raises traditional constitutional defects:
– commandeering state businesses
– federalizing conventional state police powers
– effecting takings of state authority with out compensation–effecting takings of personal property for personal profit below the guise of nationwide protection and pubic good
– preempting state legislation with out Congress
– restructuring federalism by govt fiat
Any one in every of these flaws is deadly. Collectively, they kind a decisive authorized argument.
THE REAL LESSON
Eric Schmidt constructed the centralized AI governance construction.
David Sacks and Adam Thierer are exploiting it.
Hollywood declined to cease it when it might have.
And Large Tech now has AI coverage precisely the place it needs it: inside Washington, the place the fewest obstacles stay.
It isn’t too late to problem this EO—however it’s far too late to fake that anybody ought to be stunned.
