Trump's "One Rulebook" for AI: Why America Needs Unified Regulation—Now
President Trump just unveiled what might be the most important policy announcement for the American economy in years: a federal rulebook for artificial intelligence. "There must be one rulebook," Trump said. He's right. And Constitutional Rights PAC founder Larry Ward explains exactly why—and what happens if we get it wrong.
The Problem with 50 Different Standards
Here's the reality: we're already in the AI disruption. It's not coming. It's here. Manufacturing facilities across America are being retrofitted with robots. Entire job categories are being automated at speeds we've never seen before. And right now, we have no unified approach to managing this transformation.
Without a federal standard, companies face a nightmare. Comply with California's regulations, and you violate New York's rules. Build to Texas standards, and you're non-compliant in New Jersey. The fragmentation creates chaos, drives innovation offshore, and leaves American workers with no protection.
Trump's "One Rulebook" approach solves this problem. One standard. One set of requirements. Companies know what they need to do. Workers know what protections they have. The economy can actually plan.
But Here's the Catch: The Regulators Have to Understand AI
This is where it gets critical. And this is where Larry Ward's point hits hardest.
Federal AI regulation won't work if the people enforcing it don't understand the technology. You can't regulate what you don't comprehend. Right now, most of Washington—both lawmakers and unelected bureaucrats—barely understands how Facebook works, let alone artificial intelligence.
Think about that. We're asking people who struggle with basic social media platforms to regulate the most transformative technology in human history.
"Bureaucrats aren't the people who understand how this technology works," Ward explained in his analysis of Trump's plan. The people controlling AI regulation need to understand it on a granular level. Binary level. They need to understand how these systems actually function, not just the policy implications.
Otherwise, we'll have regulations that sound good on paper but don't actually address the real problems—or worse, regulations that strangle innovation without protecting workers.
The Real Question: AI in Service of Humanity, or Humanity in Service of AI?
This isn't just about jobs. It's about what kind of future we're building.
Right now, robots are replacing manufacturing workers. But manufacturing jobs were just the beginning. White-collar jobs are next. AI is getting better at analysis, coding, writing, and problem-solving every month. Within a decade, we could see massive displacement across the economy.
The question isn't whether that happens. It will. The question is what we do about it.
Do we build AI in service of humanity—technology that enhances human capabilities, creates new opportunities, and improves lives? Or do we sleepwalk into a future where humanity is in service of AI—where workers are expendable and corporations maximize profit regardless of the human cost?
Trump's "One Rulebook" approach gives us the framework to ask these questions at a federal level. But the rulebook is only as good as the people enforcing it.
What Needs to Happen Next
For Trump's AI regulation to actually work, we need people who understand this technology sitting at the regulatory table. Not just lawyers. Not just policy advisors. People who can think about AI on a technical level.
We need regulations that protect American jobs by requiring AI deployment to include workforce transition programs, set clear standards for AI transparency so companies can't hide how their systems make decisions, ensure foreign adversaries can't use American AI technology against us, create pathways for workers displaced by automation to retrain into new roles, and preserve American innovation while preventing monopolistic control of AI technology.
And critically, we need regulators who can actually understand and enforce these rules.
The Window Is Open Right Now
This is the moment. We're early enough in the AI revolution that smart policy can still shape how it unfolds. In five years, it will be too late. The technology will be too embedded. The job losses too widespread. The inequality too entrenched.
Trump is right: there must be one rulebook. But that rulebook only matters if the people enforcing it actually know what they're doing.
