AI Executive Orders: Thought Control by Procurement

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On July 23rd, the Trump administration issued a series of executive orders on artificial intelligence that amount to a sweeping federal power grab. These orders use the weight of federal procurement to enforce ideological conformity, gut environmental oversight, and override state authority—all under the guise of promoting “neutral” AI.

📄 Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence

7/31 Adding Global AI Governance Action Plan https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/xw/zyxw/202507/t20250729\_11679232.html

The Bottom Line

These executive orders don’t just guide AI policy—they enforce federal ideology. Under the banner of “bias prevention,” they require companies to strip references to systemic racism, transgender identity, and other so-called “manipulated” concepts to remain eligible for federal contracts. Simultaneously, they sideline copyright protections and environmental safeguards to accelerate AI infrastructure development.

The orders:

  • Ignore fair use and copyright liability concerns.
  • Encourage AI exports that risk violating international IP norms.
  • Impose “truthfulness” mandates that may require AI to regurgitate copyrighted content or censor factual nuance.

Bottom line: Copyright and fair use are sacrificed for ideological conformity. This is a false construct as we have seen that China has over and over released high value low cost models that destroys the premise.   It like they are not even paying attention to market conditions.

2. Environment: Deregulation at Scale

The administration calls climate protections a bureaucratic “burden”—and acts accordingly:

  • Revokes Biden-era DEI and climate rules for federal AI infrastructure projects.
  • Fast-tracks massive data centers (100+ MW) with minimal environmental review.
  • Prioritizes fossil fuels over renewables.
  • Creates categorical exclusions to bypass impact assessments.

Translation: Climate concerns are now obstacles to be removed— environment be dammed -

3. States’ Rights: Hollowed Out

Despite claiming to respect the private market, the federal government is:

  • Seizing federal land for AI data centers.
  • Imposing permitting that overrides state environmental laws.
  • Enforcing federal procurement standards that effectively dictate terms across the AI industry.
  • Preempting state policies through export controls and interstate standards.

Result: States may set their own rules, but the real market now plays by Washington’s.

4. The Censorship Regime

The most chilling shift: forced ideological compliance through procurement contracts.

Banned from AI models:

  • Transgender identity (“transgenderism”)
  • Systemic racism
  • Unconscious bias
  • Intersectionality
  • Critical race theory

Mechanism:

  • Companies must purge these concepts from models to be eligible for federal contracts.
  • Violators face “decommissioning fees” and loss of future eligibility.

File under economic coercion—a backdoor censorship regime.

5. Constitutional Red Lines

These orders cross core constitutional boundaries:

  • Viewpoint discrimination: Government cannot declare transgender identity or systemic racism as “ideological bias.”
  • Compelled speech: Forcing AI systems to align with a specific ideology violates First Amendment protections.
  • Contract-based censorship: Using federal money to dictate private speech is still a form of government control.

Amounts to federally enforced erasure.

6. Real-World Impacts

Here’s what these policies look like in practice:

  • Federal workers will use AI tools that deny transgender identity exists.
  • Contractors must adopt sanitized, government-approved language.
  • Academic research on racism or gender risks blacklisting.
  • A split AI market emerges: one version for the government, another for the rest of society.

Conclusion: Procurement as Thought Police

These executive orders cloak authoritarian overreach in the language of “trustworthy AI.” In reality, they:

  • Undermine copyright and environmental protections.Override state authority.
  • Use contracts to compel ideological conformity.
  • Penalize acknowledgment of race, gender, and inequality.

Thought control through government contracts. Orwell, meet procurement policy.