The U.S. federal government has primarily governed Artificial Intelligence (AI) through executive orders rather than comprehensive legislation. In 2025, these orders shifted sharply toward skepticism of regulatory oversight, with several actions limiting federal enforcement, discouraging state regulation, and deprioritizing equity, transparency, and accountability in AI development. While AI has the potential to automate systems and streamline processes in ways that generate rapid results, and many orders may appear innocuous individually, their cumulative effect risks weakening decades of civil rights protections, DEI initiatives, and LGBTQIA+ safeguards.
During the first Trump administration, multiple executive orders promoted federal AI adoption and broad technological advancement. The Executive Order 13859 (2019) i launched the American AI Initiative to expand federal R&D, workforce training, data access, and national security planning. The Executive Order 13960 (2020) ii mandated trustworthy and transparent government use of AI and required agencies to catalog their AI systems. Under the Biden administration, the Executive Order 14110 (2023) iii shifted focus to AI safety and risk management, directing agencies to evaluate sector-specific risks and supporting technical standards through the new U.S. AI Safety Institute at NIST. NIST later issued a multi-layered framework for managing risks associated with AI systems.iv
In January 2025, U.S. AI policy shifted from a regulation-focused framework to prioritizing rapid innovation and global leadership. The Executive Order Removing Barriers to American Leadership in AI v accelerated development by reducing regulatory constraints and directing agencies to revise or rescind earlier AI policies in favor of an innovation-driven Action Plan. As the Oxford Human Rights Hub noted, the shift deemphasized prior Biden-era protections around privacy, discrimination, and accountability, raising concerns about the long-term protection of fundamental rights in AI deployment.vi
In April 2025, the current administration signed the Executive Order Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth vii to prepare students for an AI-driven economy by expanding AI literacy and technical skills. The order created a White House Task Force on AI Education, promoted public–private partnerships to develop K–12 curricula, prioritized teacher training and federal grants, and launched a Presidential AI Challenge to boost student engagement. However, the order raises concerns that a federally centralized AI education framework could shape curricula around a narrow, censored, or government-endorsed narrative.
In July 2025, the Executive Order Promoting the Export of the American AI Technology Stack viii was signed, directing the federal government to strengthen U.S. leadership by supporting the export of full-stack American AI technologies to allied nations. The order instructed the Secretary of Commerce to create an American AI Exports Program to evaluate industry proposals and coordinate diplomatic, financial, and technical resources to expand global adoption of U.S. AI systems, with the goal of boosting economic growth, national security, and international competitiveness.
In July 2025, the current administration signed the Executive Order Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government ix, requiring federal agencies to use politically neutral AI. The order aims to promote ideological neutrality and remove DEI and LGBTQ considerations from government AI systems. A key challenge is defining and enforcing “ideological neutrality” in practice, as AI is trained on diverse social and cultural data, and historical realities. The order also lacks clear definitions of terms like “woke AI” and “DEI,” raising concerns about subjectivity, politicization, and limits AI outputs, transparency, academic freedom, and evidence-based analysis.
Furthermore, in July 2025, the government issued Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan x, a strategy to secure U.S. leadership in AI. Building on the January 2025 executive order, it aims to accelerate innovation, expand domestic infrastructure and workforce capacity, boost AI exports, and strengthen U.S. influence in global AI governance, with a strong emphasis on competitiveness, and minimizing regulatory constraints.
In December 2025, the Executive Order Ensuring a National Policy Framework for AI xi was issued, aiming to strengthen U.S. leadership and limit inconsistent state regulations. It directed the Attorney General to form an AI Litigation Task Force to challenge conflicting state laws, tied federal funding to state compliance, and called for legislative proposals to preempt state rules. These actions followed the administration’s unsuccessful efforts to persuade Congress to adopt a moratorium on state-level AI regulation through several major bills, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the National Defense Authorization Act. The failure of these legislative efforts indicates that the December 2025 executive order reflects the administration’s decision to bypass congressional opposition while Congress has repeatedly signaled reluctance to preempt state authority in this area.
While individual executive orders may seem harmless, their cumulative impact could roll back decades of progress, limiting educational freedom, weakening privacy, and disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities by undermining civil rights, DEI, and LGBTQIA+ protections. For example, under Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth, students, still in critical learning stages, may increasingly rely on AI for guidance, shaping their knowledge, values, and worldview. Orders like Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government require agencies to remove DEI and LGBTQ considerations from AI, which indirectly affects schools and universities through funding, research partnerships, and vendor compliance. Institutions implementing “woke” AI risk penalties, while adhering to prohibitions may prevent students from learning about civil rights protections. Limiting training data also risks presenting biased narratives as fact, shaping young minds without transparency or balance.
Many executive orders effectively require AI adoption across federal, state, and local agencies, funneling public funds to dominant tech companies with little benefit to ordinary citizens. These firms may reinvest profits to gain political influence, reinforcing the cycle of power between politicians and big tech. Additionally, deregulating AI to accelerate innovation comes at the cost of privacy and civil rights. As AI systems collect and analyze vast amounts of personal data, and modern life increasingly depends on them, tech companies gain unprecedented access, enabling political manipulation, narrative control, and public surveillance.
In conclusion, AI is increasingly embedded in daily life. While its use is becoming inevitable, it poses significant risks to privacy, civil rights, and vulnerable communities. The federal government’s 2025 deregulatory shift, combined with efforts to limit state oversight, prioritizes industry interests over public welfare and raises serious accountability concerns.
[i] https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-maintaining-american-leadership-artificial-intelligence/
[ii] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/12/08/2020-27065/promoting-the-use-of-trustworthy-artificial-intelligence-in-the-federal-government
[iii] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/01/2023-24283/safe-secure-and-trustworthy-development-and-use-of-artificial-intelligence
[iv] Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (NIST AI RMF 1.0), https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.AI.100-1 (2023).
[v] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence/
[vi] https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/potential-human-rights-impact-of-president-trumps-new-policies-governing-artificial-intelligence/
[vii] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/advancing-artificial-intelligence-education-for-american-youth/
[viii] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/promoting-the-export-of-the-american-ai-technology-stack/
[ix] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/preventing-woke-ai-in-the-federal-government/
[x] chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf
[xi] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/eliminating-state-law-obstruction-of-national-artificial-intelligence-policy/