In the earliest days of Donald Trump’s second term, there were exciting signs that the administration was going to chart what we might call a “human-first” course on technology. Voters who were angry over how smartphones, social media, app stores, and EdTech had metastasized into something resembling a conspiracy against children, and who were anxious that automation might take their jobs, helped the president retake the White House.
But hopes for a human-first tech policy are already dimming. In its all-consuming efforts to beat China in the A.I. race, the Republican Party has fallen into its old libertarian habits of deferring to Big Tech’s interests, failing to protect children and families from predatory uses of emerging technology, and deregulating the industry so that it can operate without any concern for consumer welfare.
It’s not too late, though. In the administration’s earliest days, the president sided with longshoremen against efforts to make union members redundant via automation. Also, in his January 25, 2025 executive order, the president committed to A.I. policy that pursues “human flourishing.” Vice President JD Vance declared at February’s A.I. Action Summit in Paris that the administration would “fight for policies that ensure that AI” will lead to “higher wages, better benefits, and safer and more prosperous communities.” This is the road that most Americans want the administration to take.
But since then, the Republican Party has taken one huge step backward. Last month the House of Representatives approved an amendment to the “Big Beautiful Bill” that, if ratified by the Senate, would shield A.I. companies from state regulation and liability for ten whole years.
Such a move shows astounding disregard for how ungoverned technologies can undermine human flourishing—and it would unbridle Big Tech’s power. The moratorium would void a law in Utah, for instance, that prohibits mental health chatbots from targeting users with advertising, a policy that removes companies’ incentives to exploit a suffering audience. It would also block a proposed law in Texas that would require a “human operator,” i.e., a human driver, to accompany an autonomous long-haul truck as it transports its freight. And it would block several laws that have been introduced around the country, including in blue states like California and New York, that would require so-called “A.I. companions”—an Orwellian bit of Big Tech branding—to clarify that they are not human beings.
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Republicans must learn from Congress’ past mistakes, such as when, in 1996, it passed the ignominious Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 was touted as necessary to guard the innovative potential of the nascent online service industry from death by regulation. But, by granting sweeping immunity for any content posted by third parties, platforms were disincentivized from making good-faith efforts to protect kids. Section 230 dug a legal moat around Big Tech from behind which the industry waged war on America’s children.
The ten-year moratorium on A.I. regulation portends a similar legacy. It indicates that Congress, especially Republican leadership, has failed to reckon with how immunizing technological power from liability threatens human flourishing.
To its credit, by including human flourishing in its A.I. policy framework, the administration recognizes the possibility of promoting A.I. innovation without sacrificing other human goods. Human flourishing as an explicit policy objective underscores that “acceleration,” as the techno-libertarian Right calls it, is an over-simplified paradigm, and that tech policy needs to pursue a broader suite of values, especially the good of the human person and the family.
As we have argued elsewhere, the achievement of human flourishing in the age of A.I. (as in every age) depends on deliberate policy choices. Technological innovation, no matter how beneficial to economic prosperity or national security, should never come at the expense of the family or the human person. And there are ways to balance these interests. We have called upon the Trump administration, for instance, to establish a Working Group on Technology and the Family, that would directly assist in the formation of policy to guide technology toward family empowerment, and away from legislation—like the moratorium—that would put families in the crosshairs.
In February 2019, the first Trump administration released an executive order that committed the federal government to securing “public trust” and “public confidence” in its A.I. policy. It acknowledged that protecting “American values” was a critical objective, even as it worked to advance “American leadership in AI.” That is what an administration committed to human flourishing sounds like; and it is what the second Trump administration sounded like at its start. A ten-year moratorium on state regulation, by contrast, is just a retread of the tired libertarian playbook that trades American values and public trust for technological power and financial gain.
Fortunately, a groundswell of opposition among Republican senators has emerged, such as Josh Hawley (Mo.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Ron Johnson (Wisc.), and Rick Scott (Fla.), who publicly oppose the moratorium. Representative Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) has done likewise, and more may join them.
So, the die is not yet cast. The word is not yet final. The future is still ahead. The Trump administration can still make a human-first A.I. policy. But the time for choosing is now.
Michael Toscano is director of the Family First Technology Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies. Jared Hayden is a policy analyst for the Family First Tech Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies.
The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.
