Inside industry’s wishlist for a new national AI strategy
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Private sector companies and industry advocated highlight U.S. dominance, export controls and federal adoption as their biggest wants in a new national AI policy.
The open comment period for entities to offer thoughts on the Trump administration’s forthcoming Artificial Intelligence Action Plan closed March 15, with many big names in AI submitting their perspectives on how the U.S. government should approach the emerging technology.
There are variances in each company’s individual wish list for AI policy. Some of the prevalent themes across submissions, however, aligned themselves with the Trump administration’s optimistic, pro-industry stance on domestic AI policy.
“OpenAI agrees with the Trump Administration that AI creates prosperity and freedom worth fighting for — especially for younger generations whose future will be shaped by how this Administration approaches AI,” OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Christopher Lehane wrote in the company’s comments to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
In the commentary letter, Lehane promoted a regulatory approach that prioritizes technological innovation and federal adoption, drawing a relationship between U.S. leadership in cutting-edge AI solutions and national and economic security.
“OpenAI’s freedom-focused policy proposals, taken together, can strengthen America’s lead on AI and in so doing, unlock economic growth, lock in American competitiveness, and protect our national security,” the letter said.
The company’s proposals also promote scaling out supportive infrastructure; crafting copyright and export control strategies that protect developer rights; and ensuring U.S. AI can be diffused abroad.
Some of these align with other tech companies’ wishlists. Mozilla’s response to the OSTP open comment period also supported increased government adoption of AI systems and the development of more infrastructure for AI’s compute demands, but pointedly noted the continued need for strong regulatory efforts and open competition.
“Well-designed regulation is needed to make AI more trustworthy and to mitigate risk. AI policy should center on openness, competition, and accountability as the backbone of responsible regulation,” Mozilla wrote.
Key to Mozilla’s call for new AI policy to ensure the AI product landscape remains competitive and fair to all software developers is an update to antitrust legislation to ensure fair play in AI and browser engine ecosystems.
“Without appropriate competition enforcement, the AI industry is likely to be eventually held back as dominant players use monopoly power — for example by leveraging powerful market positions in other verticals — instead of innovation to maintain their leadership,” Mozilla’s comments read.
Additionally, Mozilla advocated for similar concerns OpenAI discussed, including clarity regarding open-source AI export controls, developing more public AI infrastructure and encouraging government adoption of AI systems.
IBM echoed these concerns in its own letter, asking the administration to accelerate the adoption of open source AI software specifically and prioritize a risk-based approach to AI policy.
Published on LinkedIn by Ryan Hagemann, IBM’s global AI policy issue lead, the company’s response noted that it supports government adoption and the exclusion of mandatory third party AI system audits, but highlighted the need for a strong international presence in AI regulation.
“I'm particularly bullish on the need for an ‘AI Diplomacy’ agenda,” Hagemann wrote in early March. “This is something the government is already well-positioned to initiate via [the Office of the Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technologies] within the Office of the Secretary of State — the Trump Administration just needs to formalize a strategic agenda to get the ball rolling. America is already the world leader in this technology, but we need to ensure that dominance is entrenched, globally, over the long-term.”
On the advocacy side, entities like the Alliance for Digital Innovation kept the focus squarely on risk mitigation efforts that keep security and innovation intertwined.
“By adopting a risk-based approach to AI governance, modernizing procurement processes, prioritizing AI in cybersecurity, fostering public-private collaboration, and investing in workforce development, the United States can reinforce its position as a global leader in artificial Intelligence,” its comment letter said.
ADI also noted that it supports a streamlined government procurement process for AI technologies to maintain U.S. competitiveness, and it asks the administration to prioritize the harmonization of universal standards development to bring common performance measurement practices to AI developers and deployers.