Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence

Posted by andsoitis 12/11/2025

187 points | 266 commentspage 3

xeonmc 12/12/2025|

In a parallel universe, the government in the 20th century signed bills protecting tobacco giants from State regulation to encourage investments furthering the country’s international competitiveness in the tobacco industry.

eastof 12/13/2025||

In a parallel universe tobacco is critical to the national security interest of the state. I feel you and other commenters in this thread are ignoring the fact that the outcome of the next war will likely be decided on the cyber front.

N_Lens 12/13/2025||

I don’t think humanity will survive the next war.

spencerflem 12/13/2025||

I’m hopeful humanity will, but civilization isn’t making it

sigwinch 12/12/2025||

That does kind of draw a contrast between Jesse Helms, the ultimate tobacco Senator, and Trump. They’re almost opposites.

k310 12/12/2025||

> Republicans earlier this year failed to pass a similar 10-year moratorium on state laws that regulate AI as part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with the Senate voting 99-1 to remove that ban from the legislation. Trump’s order resurrects that effort, which failed after bipartisan pushback and Republican infighting, but as an order that lacks the force of law. [0]

> Trump has framed the need for comprehensive AI regulation as both a necessity for the technology’s development and as a means of preventing leftist ideology from infiltrating generative AI – a common conservative grievance among tech leaders such as Elon Musk.

On the other hand ..... Grok and others ...

From the party of "states rights" and "small government"

[0] https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/d...

andsoitis 12/11/2025||

White House AI czar and Silicon Valley venture capitalist David Sacks elaborated on the rationale for the executive order in a post on X.
Sacks argued that this domain of “interstate commerce” was “the type of economic activity that the Framers of the Constitution intended to reserve for the federal government to regulate.”

At the Oval Office signing ceremony, Sacks said, "We have 50 states running in 50 different directions. It just doesn't make sense."

mcdan 12/12/2025||

So much for "states rights" and the "laboratories of democracy."

AndrewKemendo 12/12/2025||

We had a pretty decisive event eliminating precicely that experiment

TimorousBestie 12/12/2025||

Could you be more specific?

schmidtleonard 12/12/2025|||

He probably means the civil war.

I'd like to point out that the South was only a fan of States Rights exactly insofar as they let them do slavery. The millisecond it came to forcing Northern states to return escaped slaves, they suddenly weren't the same principled supporters of devolving and federating power. Funny how that works.

duskwuff 12/12/2025|||

And just in case it wasn't clear enough already: one of the first acts of the Confederacy was to draft a provisional constitution which explicitly authorized slavery, and which prohibited either Congress or any state from passing laws to the contrary.

lesuorac 12/12/2025||

States also weren't allow to leave the Confederacy ...

TimorousBestie 12/13/2025|||

Yeah, I just wanted them to cut out the coy vagueposting and say out loud how bad they think Reconstruction was.

So in that respect, mission accomplished.

AndrewKemendo 12/12/2025||||

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment

stocksinsmocks 12/13/2025|||

[flagged]

TimorousBestie 12/13/2025||

Now that’s an excellent piece of latter-day Confederate apologia that I haven’t heard before. The South was basically Gaza. Amazing work.

CPLX 12/12/2025|||

> Sacks argued that this domain of “interstate commerce” was “the type of economic activity that the Framers of the Constitution intended to reserve for the federal government to regulate.”

They did indeed. It’s explicitly delegated to congress which declined to pass a law like this.

The EO is just obviously null and void in the face of any relevant state law.

jandrewrogers 12/12/2025||

Wickard v Filburn rearing its ugly ahead again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

threemux 12/13/2025|||

Many of the ills currently befalling the US can be traced to the New Deal era. Including, of course, an HN favorite: our system of employer-sponsored health insurance.

rubyfan 12/12/2025|||

I’m not a legal scholar but this seems pretty bone headed.

lesuorac 12/12/2025||

Which part?

The "The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production, based on the acreage owned by a farmer, to stabilize wheat prices and supplies." seems like quite the federal overreach never mind the court decision.

rubyfan 12/13/2025||

Mostly the decision but yeah it’s a double whammy of bad policy from congress and probably worse ruling from the court.

siliconc0w 12/13/2025||

An EO is not law - the hard part is going to be to get congress onboard. Trump is losing political steam and AI is widely unpopular. Most of this country feels AI is going take their job, poison their children, and increase energy prices.

Animats 12/13/2025||

Right. Congress has the power to preempt state law in an area related to interstate commerce by legislating comprehensive rules. The executive branch does not have the authority to do that by itself.

This is like Trump's "pardon" of someone serving time for a state crime. It does little if anything.

Quite a number of AI-related bills have been introduced in Congress, but very few have made much progress. Search "AI" on congress.gov.

hcurtiss 12/13/2025|||

Where do you get this impression? I don’t know anybody who thinks that.

missingcolours 12/13/2025||

> Trump is losing political steam and AI is widely unpopular.

It seems extremely popular based on my LinkedIn feed! /s

malfist 12/13/2025||

Good thing LinkedIn is such an authentic representation of the vox populi

bgwalter 12/13/2025||

Pure nepotism. Trump also recently softened on cannabis. Who is involved in cannabis (and Adderall) startups? David Sacks, "Crypto and AI czar" and YouTube pundit.

We were promised a better economy, better job chances, and better housing by Mr. Sacks on YouTube.

Instead we get "crypto", "AI" and addictive substance grifting.

m4ck_ 12/13/2025|

Perhaps folks should take some time to realize they've been conned by people whose only interest is their own personal weatlh and power, and will promise anything like "prices are going down day one" or "your income and networth will DOUBLE if you elect me" to get elected.

ChrisArchitect 12/12/2025||

[dead]

cebert 12/11/2025||

I wish this article would include what the details of the framework are. It’s unhelpful in its current form.

dang 12/12/2025|

We've since changed the URL to link to the order itself, and put links to other articles in the toptext.

ChrisArchitect 12/12/2025||

Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46239009

dang 12/12/2025|

We'll merge that thread hither.

henning 12/12/2025|

[flagged]

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