President Trump may be undermining his own AI goals

President Donald Trump has emerged as perhaps America’s most important cheerleader for artificial intelligence this year, releasing a milestone AI Action Plan over the summer and a flurry of executive orders to encourage the global ascendancy of American tech companies. Recently, that policy took a new turn: He signed an order last week to launch the Genesis Mission, an initiative that tasks the Department of Energy and other science agencies to more vigorously apply AI for advancing research. It’s a change from just pumping the accelerator to thinking about why we’re pumping the accelerator. Two former officials from the Biden White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy are now saying that the Genesis Mission is actually a decent idea. But having looked into a lot of the goals President Trump seems to embrace, they also worry that the rest of the President’s agenda has actually kneecapped meaningful advances in AI, meaning that Genesis is already at a disadvantage in hitting its goals.