The National Writers Union (NWU) calls on Congress, state legislators, and policy makers in other countries to reject President Donald Trump’s call for U.S. “dominance” in artificial intelligence (AI). We don’t want AI policy to be set by Executive Order rather than by legislation, and we’ve already spelled out our AI wish list in our Platform and Principles for Policy on Generative AI.
Just three days after his inauguration, as part of his pattern of rule by decree, President Trump issued an Executive Order stating that, “It is the policy of the United States to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance.” This Executive Order sought to preempt or overturn ongoing debate in Congress and state legislatures, an ongoing study by the U.S. Copyright Office in which the NWU has participated with testimony and written submissions, ongoing litigation, and legislation already enacted and under further refinement in the European Union to regulate the use of generative AI and protect creators’ and other workers’ rights.
President Trump’s Executive Order on AI directed the preparation of a plan for executive action to achieve its goals, and was followed by a call for public comments to help develop that plan. While the NWU has offered its expertise and guidance in response to past calls for public comments, we chose not to respond to this call. Doing so would suggest that we believe that an American plan for “global AI dominance” is desirable, which it is not.
The NWU doesn’t support U.S. “dominance” of the world, in AI or anything else. The Internet is global, and no one country can set effective AI policy without international collaboration. The NWU stands in solidarity with writers and other creators worldwide whose work is being appropriated by AI companies without compensation or consent, as well as with the underpaid content moderators and curators, mainly in the Global South, whose exploitation is a key source of the wealth being extracted from our labor and accumulated by AI profiteers.
The responses by generative AI companies to Trump’s call for comments on AI policy make clear that “removing barriers” is a euphemism for stripping creators of our rights to control the use of our work and overturning or ignoring emerging international norms on AI regulation – pioneered by the European Union, not the U.S. – to protect the public against the misuse of AI for deception and disinformation.
Google, for example, claimed in its submission that “the use of copyrighted… material for AI training” has been carried out “without significantly impacting rightsholders” and has allowed AI developers to “avoid often highly unpredictable, imbalanced, and lengthy negotiations with data holders.” There’s no reason to expect Google to be aware of how its actions have impacted us as creators, much less to speak for us about those impacts. Google’s real goal is clear: to not have to negotiate with us as workers or pay us an agreed upon amount for our work.
“OpenAI agrees with the Trump Administration that AI creates prosperity and freedom worth fighting for”, according to the company’s submission. Do they really think the U.S. should go to war to expropriate the labor of workers around the world for their greater profit?
The NWU’s policy agenda on generative AI requires action by legislators. It cannot be implemented by executive action. The President can make proposals to Congress, but so can we the people. NWU members are by definition communicators; we will speak for ourselves to Congress and other legislative bodies about what laws we want enacted.
As long as President Trump is disregarding the role of Congress and the courts and the rule of law, Congress shouldn’t listen to him for legislative guidance. We will not legitimize his attempts to rule by decree by participating in sham “consultations” about what policies he should order. Instead of AI policy dictated solely by President Trump and designed primarily to benefit his billionaire cronies, including Elon Musk, the NWU continues to call on the U.S. Congress and lawmakers in other countries and international bodies to enact and enforce AI policies that center the humanity of creators and other workers around the world whose lives and livelihoods are implicated by generative AI, in accordance with the NWU’s Platform and Principles for Policy on Generative AI.
