Trump Is Repeating Biden's AI Mistakes
Administered by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, the Framework for AI Diffusion creates a global licensing regime for closed AI models and the advanced chips used to train and run them. The bureau administers the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), which govern what American-made products may be exported based on the item, the destination, the end use, and the end user.
The framework, with which exporters must comply by May 15, amends the EAR by extending the bureau's regulatory oversight to include foreign products that are "direct products" of American technology subject to the EAR. Under the framework, the Commerce Department will also be able to regulate products made by a "complete plant or 'major component' of a plant that is a 'direct product'" of those domestic technologies.
The worldwide license regime applies to any advanced semiconductor designed for data center use and graphics processing units (GPUs) used for AI acceleration. The framework also introduces licenses to export the model weights of closed AI models that exceed a certain threshold of computational power. Matthew Mittelsteadt, technology policy research fellow at the Cato Institute, tells Reason that while every model that exists today is under this threshold, "a lot of training in and of itself does not make [AI] intelligent or risky."
The framework preemptively denies applications for the export of advanced semiconductors as well as advanced AI models to Arms Embargoed Countries, which includes China. But prohibiting the sale of high-powered GPUs to China did not stop DeepSeek from developing its advanced large language model, R1. The framework subjects roughly 150 countries, including India and Brazil, "to a byzantine and problematic set of limits" that further reduces demand for American chips, according to John Villasenor, nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Restricting the sale of advanced semiconductors doesn't only harm domestic tech firms such as Intel and Nvidia, but the American economy writ large. "Closing the door on all sorts of international trade opportunities," explains Mittelsteadt, "means we're closing the door on the markets that are needed to reap revenue on the things that we invent." Not generating revenue means the U.S. "can't invest in R&D," he adds, "and if we can't invest in R&D we're going to start falling behind."
The post Trump Is Repeating Biden's AI Mistakes appeared first on Reason.com.
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