U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as he holds a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 30, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
President Donald Trump’s proposed AI bill, known as the TRUMP AMERICA AI Act, was denounced by a right-leaning think tank on Friday for a number of reasons — including how it will potentially infringe on free speech.
“The proposal isn’t the light-touch, pro-innovation approach that seeks to make America’s tech sector the leader in this global market but a kitchen sink of internet and AI regulation that could create more problems than it solves at a critical moment,” wrote The Cato Institute on Friday. Authors Kevin T. Frazier and Jennifer Huddleston described the 291 page draft bill as put forward by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) as a “poor path forward if the United States is going to lead on AI. While a few specific elements of the Trump administration’s AI Action Plan raise their own concerns, Senator Blackburn’s proposal would significantly shift the US away from the light-touch regulatory approach that has traditionally allowed it to flourish as a global leader in new technologies.”
The authors proceeded to list several issues with the bill. For one thing, it would allegedly enact “burdensome requirements under the guise of protecting children that could instead censor speech and limit access to information,” raising the specter of precisely the type of state-pressured censorship that libertarians traditionally denounce. Second, they argued it places an “onerous ‘duty of care’ on AI developers that could unnecessarily slow design, development, and operation of AI.”
They also claim the bill “weaponizes the Copyright Act of 1976” in ways that will impede AI development and “harms competition by enabling the US attorney general, state attorneys general, and private actors to file suit to hold AI system developers liable for harms caused by the AI system for defective design, failure to warn, express warranty, and unreasonably dangerous or defective product claims.” Even a provision one might expect conservatives to support, requiring AI systems to not include ideologically biased language, alarms The Cato Institute because it “would not only compel labs to train their models in certain ways but also create an AI-audit industrial complex.”
Trump has used his power as president to pressure AI companies or penalize them for crossing him. When the AI firm Anthropic pushed back against Trump for demanding policies that they claimed crossed ethical guidelines, Trump fired Anthropic from its defense contracts and is now attempting to harm their business further by branding them a security risk. Yet Trump’s critics worry his actions toward Anthropic may actually put America at risk.
“President Trump on Friday banned Anthropic and its AI products from all government contracts, and the Communists must be cheering in Beijing,” The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board wrote in February. “The Administration is making what is a modest dispute over the military uses of AI into a self-destructive show of brute political force that will hurt the U.S. military and the rest of the government.”
By contrast the AI firm OpenAI has continued to work with the Trump administration, much to the consternation of many supporters of CEO Sam Altman.
“This process is messy,” Altman told critics in March. “This process has some deep flaws, but it is better than all other systems. If we start abandoning that process and our commitment to it because, you know, some people don’t like the person or people currently in charge, that is challenged no matter what. I think it’s bad for society no matter what.”
He also insisted that OpenAI has not violated Americans’ civil liberties.
“I think one of the civil liberties of this country that’s most important is the government does not spy without, you know, warrants and good legal process on its own citizens,” Altman said. “The definition of what that is going to mean needs to change with technology.”