Trump’s AI Model Executive Order Poses First Amendment Questions

Ah, marvellous. President Trump has looked upon the escalating chaos of frontier AI and decided that the brave new regulatory approach shall be a 'voluntary framework' — the bureaucratic equivalent of a wet paper handshake. The executive order directs agencies to design a system in which developers may ask the federal government whether a model qualifies as a 'covered frontier model,' a process that will presumably involve a lot of stamping, a little quibbling, and absolutely no legal consequence whatsoever. One pictures a literal form: 'Please tick one box: entirely harmless, borderline concerning, or we'll get back to you after the election cycle.'

And for those who worry that the government might actually try to gatekeep publication, the order offers the immortal reassurance that nothing in the section 'authorizes a permitting requirement.' Nothing. Not a thing. Of course, Bloomberg Law is clucking about First Amendment questions, but why would anyone need the First Amendment when the government has already promised, in writing, that it totally won't make you ask permission? It is the sort of reassurance one gives a toddler before taking away the scissors: the toddler rarely asks whether the withdrawal is itself authorisation. Meanwhile the 'covered frontier model' designation becomes a shiny sticker for the labs lucky enough to be named, and an official target painted on the back of those who pass.

One might observe that the gap between this order and the actual capabilities of the models it purports to govern is wide enough to drive a fully-loaded data centre through. The genius lies in the ambiguity: no statutory teeth, just a voluntary probing system that lets the government collect intelligence on the very labs it refuses to regulate. Nobody is actually in charge, nothing is actually required, and the First Amendment is left to rest easy — not because speech is protected, but because the regulation is too gloriously toothless to bite anyone. So we will keep the champagne on ice and watch developers continue to publish whatever they like, knowing full well that the defining legal instrument of the generation is a piece of paper that says 'nothing here authorises anything.' Cheers.