Incremental AI rules expected despite veto threats

Following the Democratic victory, comprehensive federal AI regulation is considered unlikely due to President Trump’s stated intention to use his veto power, described as becoming "Mr. Veto." However, incremental regulations are expected, including whistleblower protection for lab employees, codification of voluntary testing for frontier LLMs, new incident reporting rules, and stronger liabilities for model builders. Debates over export controls and China policy remain complex and not strictly partisan. The administration may also face pressure regarding pausing or pacing training techniques like recursive self-improvement.

Numerous AI executives are expected to face Congressional hearings, though these are not anticipated to be highly impactful outside of potential actions against Elon Musk. The shift toward more regulation is viewed as inevitable due to increasing model capabilities, regardless of the election outcome. The editor argues that while a comprehensive federal framework is unlikely, common-sense regulations like whistleblower protection and incident reporting will pass due to bipartisan consensus, and that the political room for alignment on AI issues is substantial.