The Washington Post reports:

Silicon Valley’s risky bet on President Donald Trump is starting to pay dividends.

Trump on Wednesday revealed the White House’s plan to help the United States lead a global race to develop artificial intelligence. He also signed three executive orders that will facilitate exports of U.S. technologies and boost the build-out of data centers — advancing the agenda of executives and investors seeking to cash in on an AI gold rush.

Trump delivered the plan at an event co-hosted by the Hill and Valley Forum, an influential interest group founded by tech leaders, and “All-In,” a popular Silicon Valley podcast co-hosted by White House AI and crypto czar David Sacks.

“America must once again be a country where innovators are rewarded with a green light, not strangled with red tape,” Trump said to an audience of administration officials and executives, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, tech investor Chamath Palihapitiya and Sriram Krishnan, the White House senior policy adviser for AI. The tech leaders cheered as Trump discussed executive orders intended to combat excessive regulation.

Administration officials later attended an after-party organized by the Hill and Valley Forum’s co-founders at the upscale, members-only Ned’s Club, according to an invitation viewed by The Washington Post. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was initially expected to speak at the party, but there ultimately were no remarks, according to a person familiar with the event who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private gathering. (The Post has a content partnership with OpenAI.)

Trump has flaunted his administration’s connections to the industry as a display of innovation and economic power. But consumer advocates warn that industries should not be able to write their own rules, amid concerns that AI could kill jobs, harm the environment and exacerbate existing social biases.

Among the actions Trump took Wednesday was signing an executive order targeting “woke” artificial intelligence, an answer to Trump’s Silicon Valley supporters who allege companies have built tools and chatbots that show a liberal political bias. Those moves could benefit some tech companies that have tweaked their models to address these allegations, but they could limit the ability of other companies to contract with the federal government. Executives applauded as Trump criticized a Biden-era executive order that sought to prevent AI from exacerbating racial biases in society.

“Somebody told me the other day, ‘It’s so uncool to be woke,’” Trump said. “I encourage all American companies to join us in rejecting poisonous Marxism in our technology.” [Continue reading…]