Trump, EU Deregulation and 'Militarization' Sidelining AI Act: Op-Ed
The world has changed so dramatically since the EU AI Act took effect last August that its assumptions have been upended and its focus on rights has shifted, two digital rights advocates wrote in an op-ed Thursday in Tech Policy.
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The trans-Atlantic race for AI supremacy, the EU's new focus on deregulation and a "wave of militarization" raise questions about how we can still talk about "AI governance" when rights have been taken out of the equation in favor of innovation, said Caterina Rodelli, EU policy analyst at Access Now, and Sarah Chandler, director of Equinox Initiative for Racial Justice.
A report by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi on EU competitiveness, published in September 2024, criticized Europe's stagnating innovation and regulatory approach, leading the European Commission to propose a deregulatory agenda that "simplified" the AI Act in the name of "competitiveness," they wrote.
In June, the EC confirmed that the act's few crucial safeguards could be diluted before their 2026 implementation (see 2506250003), they added.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has pledged to invest $500 billion in private-led AI infrastructure and drastically cut U.S. regulation, the authors said. It's also trying to purge "woke" AI and has accelerated the technology in surveillance, policing and military operations.
These priorities are now taking hold in Europe, they added. "Faced with pressure to compete globally, the EU is increasingly choosing revenue over rights."
To Rodelli and Chandler, Europe's redirection of funds to the tech, security and military industries "amounts to a taxpayer-sponsored blank check to the very industry that the AI Act was meant to regulate," all with less scrutiny and accountability.
"We need to stop pretending that rights can be balanced against profit, or that expansive deregulation can coexist with dignity."
The act will be fully applicable in August 2026, they noted. Over the next year, civil society, journalists, researchers and activists must treat this "as a critical window to resist the erosion of hard-won protections."