OpenAI is petitioning the government to offer AI companies some relief from the hundreds of bills currently being proposed and debated.
In a 15-page document, the company has responded to the government’s call for input as the Trump administration works on an AI Action Plan.
The document asks for the federal government to basically intervene to stop the measures put in place by individual states curtailing AI’s rapid innovation. The appeal is likely to hit a chord as innovation at all cost – a hands-off approach – is an approach that OpenAI boss Sam Altman knows will appeal to the President.
What Does OpenAI Want?
The letter strikes a similar tone to Altman’s appeal for copyright laws to be relaxed for AI innovators to innovate.
His company argues that the bills that various US States are currently considering will slow down development. In exchange, reports Bloomberg, which has seen the document, AI companies would give the government voluntary access to their technology.
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OpenAI is already working closely with the Trump administration. A month ago, it unveiled ChatGPT Gov, which is an AI agent built specifically for governmental use.
OpenAI CPO Kevin Weil explained that government employees can feed the agent “non-public, sensitive information” and that the AI will operate within secure government hosting environments.
Winning the AI Arms Race
Altman is appealing to Trump’s desire to win the AI arms release, which seems to have gone almost white hot with constant releases from China. DeepSeek gained the number one spot in both the Apple and Android App charts with its AI agent and Alibaba has been relentless with its releases.
In the proposal, OpenAI put its finger right on this sore point. It wrote that if China’s “developers have unfettered access to data and American companies are left without fair use access…the race for AI is effectively over.”
Trump has already rescinded his predecessor’s AI Safety law – and has promised to “unleash the potential of the American citizen,” especially, it seems, those working in AI.
State Intervention
However, individual states are looking to put legal AI frameworks in place. In California, one such bill was blocked in September by Governor Gavin Newsom but it hasn’t been taken off the table completely.
There is momentum for AI safety bills, including from within the industry itself – notably from OpenAi rival and AI wunderkind Anthropic. In fact, a letter was sent to Newsom urging him to lead on AI regulation and the signatories included employees of OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, Meta, and xAI.
Instead, the OpenAi leadership is urging the Government to bypass States legislators and let Ai ventures just communicate directly with that the US AI Safety Institute. Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s vice president of global affairs, said in an interview: “Part of the incentive for doing that ought to be that you don’t have to go through the state stuff, which is not going to be anywhere near as good as what the federal level would be.”
This is not going to sit well with the senators currently working on bills, as it essentially take their power away. However, as the Chinese AI companies push their wares – and innovate at speed – the desire to beat them might drive Trump to consider OpenAI’s proposal whatever the implications.
