David Sacks, the White House’s artificial intelligence “czar,” said he wants to preempt a patchwork of state AI regulations, saying that current legislation may push diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requirements onto developers.
In a recent All-In Podcast episode, Sacks said that states’ “regulatory frenzy” is encouraging “woke AI” and will lead to a patchwork of AI laws that hurt new technology startups.
The AI czar, who serves as President Donald Trump’s special advisor for AI and crypto, specifically pointed to recent legislation passed in California and Colorado.
California’s Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act – or S.B. 53 – was passed earlier this month as a first-of-its-kind measure to require large AI developers to report details on safety measures taken while creating their models and include the greatest risks posed by their technology to the public.
While that bill isn’t bad by itself, Sacks said, the problem is that when each state has its own reporting requirements, it begins to impact startups who have to figure out how to maintain compliance with reports and deadlines.
“This is like very European-style regulations – actually, maybe even worse than the EU, because the EU tried to basically harmonize to get to one authority,” said Sacks. “We’re gonna have 50. They’re gonna have one.”
The EU AI Act was passed in 2024 and became the world’s first comprehensive, risk-based legal framework requiring AI systems deployed in the EU to be safe, transparent, non-discriminatory, and subject to oversight.
The law has largely received criticism from Republicans and the Trump administration, who have called the regulations burdensome on innovation, saying that it could stifle progress in the technology’s development.
“The red state proposals for AI in general have a lighter touch than in the blue states, but everyone just seems to be motivated by the imperative to do something on AI, even though no one’s really sure what that something should be exactly,” said Sacks.
The Colorado AI Act – passed in 2024 with mandates that developers and users of high-risk AI prevent algorithmic bias – meanwhile may set a standard that requires AI developers to develop DEI frameworks, Sacks said, claiming that this will lead to “woke AI.”
“No one’s quite sure how to implement it,” said Sacks. “The only way that I see for model developers to comply with this law is to build in a new DEI layer into the models to basically somehow prevent models from giving outputs that might have a disparate impact on protected groups.”
“So, we’re back to woke AI again. That’s the whole point of this Colorado law,” he added.
Earlier this summer, the Senate voted 99-1 to remove a decade-long moratorium on state AI regulation from its reconciliation bill after it became controversial among both Democrats and Republicans.
Sacks said that the state ban was “well-intentioned and well-motivated,” but he thinks it fell short of Republican support because the party does not want to be seen as supporting “Big Tech” after he claimed that large tech companies censored Republicans during the COVID-19 pandemic.
That move ultimately “benefits the blue states who are in the lead” in AI regulation, Sacks said, adding that it’s “not something any Republican should want.”
“If there is no federal standard, what you’re going to see is that the blue states will drive this ban on, ‘quote, unquote,’ algorithmic discrimination, which will lead to DEI being promoted in models,” said Sacks.
In the future, he added that he thinks “more Republicans will come on board as they realize what the blue states are doing here is not helpful for conservatives,” specifically that “it’s not helpful for having an unbiased information environment.”