Ethics questions associated with the head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy make it hard to see through to the value of any policy proposal being made to promote artificial intelligence, according to a nonprofit government watchdog group which cited a high-profile application of the technology as one example of the fallout.
“Regardless of one’s views on the merits of how public policy should address AI, there is every reason to fear an administration replete with so many conflicts of interest,” Andrea Beaty, assistant director of the Revolving Door Project, told Inside AI Policy. “Every action from the Trump administration, including on AI, should be viewed through the prism of self-interest, not public policy.”
The Revolving Door Project is supported by the Democracy Fund, a foundation established by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar. Its mission is to ensure executive-branch appointees “use their office to serve the broad public interest, rather than to entrench corporate power or seek personal advancement.”
Beaty’s comment comes as trade associations for the tech industry praise a March 26 letter Trump sent to OSTP Director Michael Kratsios, who disclosed his tenure -- and ongoing retirement accounts, as approved by the Office of Government Ethics -- with Scale AI and Theil Capital at his confirmation hearing for the position. Theil Capital shares a co-founder -- the defense-industry investor Peter Theil -- with Palantir, which is vying for a federal contract to work on classified AI applications.
An OSTP official reached for comment told Inside AI Policy, “Director Kratsios was confirmed by the Senate with a wide bipartisan margin and is committed to American leadership in emerging tech.”
The tech groups, along with a leading senator on AI policy, noted the presidential letter’s alignment with their own goals for scientific advancement to “usher in the Golden Age of American Innovation” including by “accelerat[ing] research and development” and “dismantle[ing] regulatory barriers.”
Specifically, the Trump letter asked, “How can the United States secure its position as the unrivaled world leader in critical and emerging technologies -- such as artificial intelligence… -- maintaining our advantage over potential adversaries?”
Answering the same question before the Senate Commerce Committee, Kratsios said his strategy would involve boosting federal procurement of AI services, particularly the use of large language models by the military and intelligence agencies.
Such use cases -- including those at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security -- were highly scrutinized by civil society groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Brennan Center for Justice during the Biden administration which generally applied a special policy for their disclosure, citing “national security” exemptions.
The civil society groups provided specific examples of Muslims being labelled as terrorists, noting generative AI “exacerbates longstanding problems” with biases propagated by the technology.
But the new Trump administration appears unabashed about its use of AI to identify protestors on student visas for deportation including by using the technology to comb through their social media accounts.
Asked to comment on Trump’s letter to the OSTP director, Beaty pointed to a report of the State Department’s plan to deploy the technology with a “whole of authority approach” citing the 1952 Immigration Nationality Act to proceed with a new “catch and revoke” initiative.
“In this particular case, Kratsios’ former employers [Theil] and Scale AI are well positioned to profit from any government contracts in service of Trump’s ‘innovation’ mandate -- and the admin’s plan to use AI to find student visa holders involved in pro-Palestinian protests and deport them gives us a more detailed idea of what kind of ‘innovation’ the Trump admin has in mind,” she said.