TRUMP’S EXECUTIVE ORDER ON AI: REGULATION HINDERED, MINDS EXPOSED

Dec. 13, 2025

THE MENTAL FORECAST

According to The Guardian, Donald Trump has signed an executive order designed to block state-level regulation of artificial intelligence and to actively challenge existing AI laws through a newly created federal AI Litigation Task Force. The order aims to prevent states from imposing requirements such as safety testing disclosures or algorithmic risk assessments, with Trump arguing that a fragmented regulatory landscape would deter investment and slow innovation. This move revives an earlier attempt to impose a national moratorium on state AI regulation — previously rejected by the Senate — but now reintroduced via executive authority, despite lacking full legislative force.

This decision immediately raises a first major question: what happens to collective mental health when regulation is hindered precisely in domains that shape cognition, attention, and behavior at scale? AI systems increasingly structure digital environments through attention capture, predictive nudging, and behavioral optimization. Without localized safeguards, exposure to these systems intensifies technostress, cognitive overload, and emotional dysregulation — phenomena already observable at a population level (Montag & Elhai, 2020).

A second question concerns belief formation and identity: how does hindering regulation reinforce economic and success-oriented belief systems embedded in AI architectures? When algorithms remain unchecked, they amplify reward-driven feedback loops that normalize permanent performance evaluation and social comparison. Over time, this reshapes self-esteem and decision-making, embedding neoliberal productivity norms directly into psychological functioning rather than remaining external pressures (Twenge et al., 2021).

Third, who absorbs the psychological and social cost of deregulation? State-level initiatives in places like California and Colorado targeted algorithmic discrimination in hiring and service access — areas where exclusion, perceived injustice, and loss of agency directly affect mental health. Blocking these protections risks deepening social exclusion fears and stress-related disorders among already vulnerable populations, reinforcing structural inequalities under the guise of technological neutrality (Benjamin, 2019).

Finally, a broader question emerges: what kind of society is normalized when regulation is framed as an obstacle rather than a condition for psychological safety? By hindering regulatory oversight, this order shifts responsibility from institutions to individuals, promoting adaptation to harmful environments rather than prevention. The likely outcome is not an immediate crisis, but a slow, distributed erosion of mental well-being — an invisible public health cost of accelerated AI deployment without democratic restraint.

Liviu Poenaru

References

Montag, C., & Elhai, J. D. (2020). Discussing digital technology overuse in children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: On the importance of considering affective neuroscience theory. Addictive Behaviors Reports, 12, 100313. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.abrep.2020.100313Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. Polity Press.Twenge, J. M., Haidt, J., Blake, A. B., McAllister, C., Lemon, H., & Le Roy, A. (2021). Worldwide increases in adolescent loneliness. Journal of adolescence, 93, 257–269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2021.06.006

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