Dive Brief:
- Vice President JD Vance outlined the Trump administration’s approach to AI governance during the AI Action Summit in Paris on Tuesday, underlining its push for U.S. leadership and its distaste for regulation.
- “We believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it’s taking off, and we’ll make every effort to encourage pro-growth AI policies,” Vance said in his keynote speech. “I’d like to see that deregulatory flavor making its way into a lot of the conversations at this conference.”
- The VP also said the administration plans to take a “pro-worker growth path” for AI. “We refuse to view AI as a purely disruptive technology that will inevitably automate away our labor force,” he said.
Dive Insight:
The Trump administration continues to endorse a light regulatory touch for AI in order to capture the technology’s potential benefits.
President Donald Trump shifted AI oversight in the U.S. with his executive orders in January, which revoked Biden-era policies and tasked agencies with removing barriers to innovation. Vance echoed the sentiment Tuesday.
“I’m not here this morning to talk about AI safety,” Vance said. “I’m here to talk about AI opportunity.”
Vance warned global leaders at the conference, which included heads of governments, leaders of international organizations and enterprise CEOs, that being overly risk-averse has its own consequences.
“America wants to partner with all of you,” Vance said. “But to create that kind of trust, we need international regulatory regimes that foster the creation of AI technology rather than strangle it, and we need our European friends, in particular, to look to this new frontier with optimism.”
The U.S. and U.K. did not sign an international agreement on AI at the global summit, Politico first reported Tuesday. More than 70 governments and organizations, including the EU and China, signed the statement affirming priorities on AI governance moving forward, such as making AI sustainable.
