AI Regulation Should Be Rational, Not Retaliatory

The Trump administration’s approach to AI safety, particularly the generative AI models that regularly grab headlines, has been haphazard at best. At worst, it’s unconstitutional. As EFF and our allies explained in an amicus brief, the Pentagon’s actions against one company, Anthropic, violate the First Amendment because they were motivated by the administration’s desire to punish an uncooperative company, not legitimate concerns about national security. By and large, the Trump administration’s AI strategy has minimized regulation in the name of “winning” the global “race” to develop leading frontier models. It has pared back regulations intended to address even the most serious AI threats—like AI-enabled cyberattacks on government systems—to protect AI innovation. Yet it has repeatedly singled out one AI company for arbitrary, heavy-handed rules and sanctions. For years, the federal government relied on Anthropic’s models for use in its classified systems. But after Anthropic resisted