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To Counter Trump, Coalition Launches People's AI Action Plan
"The White House AI Action Plan is written by Big Tech interests invested in advancing AI that's used on us, not by us. Today, we are reclaiming agency over the trajectory AI will take."
Jul 22, 2025
In anticipation of U.S. President Donald Trump's Artificial Intelligence Action Plan, over 90 groups focused on consumer protection, economic and environmental justice, labor, and more came together Tuesday to call for an AI blueprint that "delivers on public well-being, shared prosperity, a sustainable future, and security for all."
"We can't let Big Tech and Big Oil lobbyists write the rules for AI and our economy at the expense of our freedom and equality, workers and families' well-being, even the air we breathe and the water we drink—all of which are affected by the unrestrained and unaccountable rollout of AI," says the coalition's website for the new People's AI Action Plan.
"The American people need good, stable jobs, functioning public institutions, safe online spaces for children, and clean, affordable, safe, and reliable energy," the site says. "The American economy needs robust innovation, a level playing field for all, and relief from the tech monopolies who repeatedly sacrifice the interests of everyday people for their own profits."
The site features "actionable ideas for an AI agenda that meets the needs of everyday people," highlighting campaigns and reports from coalition members, including Accountable Tech, AI Now Institute, Color of Change, Demand Progress Education Fund, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Fight for the Future, Friends of the Earth, MediaJustice, National Nurses United, New Disabled South, Open Markets Institute, and Public Citizen.
The 90+ organizations supporting a People's AI Action Plan all have concrete, actionable ideas for an AI agenda that furthers the interests of everyday people and challenges the tech billionaire agenda we’ll see from the White House. Learn more about them: peoplesaiaction.com
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— EPIC (@epic.org) July 22, 2025 at 11:46 AM
"The White House AI Action Plan is written by Big Tech interests invested in advancing AI that's used on us, not by us," said AI Now Institute co-executive directors Sarah Myers West and Amba Kak in a statement. "Today, we are reclaiming agency over the trajectory AI will take: It's time for a People's Action Plan for AI that puts the needs of everyday Americans over corporate profits."
Trump started the process for his AI Action Plan with a January executive order. It is expected to be released on Wednesday.
Citing unnamed sources, Axios reported last week that "the plan largely lays out the Trump administration's aspirations for AI, some of which officials have already stated, including: promoting innovation, reducing regulatory burdens, and overhauling permitting."
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy spokesperson Victoria LaCivita said in an email to Axios that it "will deliver a strong, specific, and actionable federal policy roadmap that goes beyond the details reported here and we look forward to releasing it soon."
According to Monday reporting from Politico, "The AI Action Plan will include cutting back environmental requirements and streamlining permitting policies to make it easier to build data centers and power infrastructure."
Also on Monday, Nextgov/FCW—which obtained documents and spoke with unnamed sources—reported that "Trump plans to sign three AI-focused executive orders in the runup to the release of the administration's sweeping AI Action Plan."
"Each order focuses on one of three aspects of artificial intelligence regulation and policy that the administration has prioritized: spearheading AI-ready infrastructure; establishing and promoting a U.S. technology export regime; and ensuring large language models are not generating 'woke' or otherwise biased information," according to Nextgov/FCW.
Experts will tell you: The growth of AI doesn't have to mean Big Tech + Big Oil write the rules as they have for this White House. It does not have to mean less freedom + equality. Or more pollution + scarcity. Join us in putting people first in AI: peoplesaiaction.com
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— Open Markets Institute (@openmarkets.bsky.social) July 22, 2025 at 11:06 AM
J.B. Branch, Big Tech accountability advocate at Public Citizen, stressed on Tuesday that "AI is already harming workers, consumers, and communities—and instead of enforcing guardrails, this administration is gutting oversight."
Branch pointed to a recent vote in the U.S. Senate to remove a controversial provision that would have prevented state-level regulation of AI for a decade from Republicans' budget reconciliation package, which Trump signed on July 4.
"After the AI moratorium was defeated 99-1 under massive public pressure, the message from the public was clear: No more handouts for Trump's tech bro buddies," Branch said. "We need rules and accountability—not a Silicon Valley free-for-all."
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We Need Human Connection to Heal Democracy and Build Shared Prosperity
If we want to have an economic system that looks out for everyone—a system of belonging and inclusion—we must improve how we relate to each other.
Jul 20, 2025
Recently I wrote about shared prosperity and why I believe that focusing on achieving it is a better way to organize our economy. The message resonated with many people, who wanted to learn more. Over the coming months I plan to explore the concept of shared prosperity and how it can guide our economic system as an invitation to investigate, discuss, debate, and imagine a better way to organize our economy. My hope is that these pieces might help you find a way to describe something you have been thinking, give you an idea to develop further in your work, or—best of all—give you a little hope to keep fighting the good fight.
We are in a critical moment in our history. The world economic order underpinned by neoliberalism is sputtering and collapsing before our eyes. It is collapsing under the weight of extreme inequality, the gross concentration of power and wealth hoarded by a few, the unsustainable exploitation of our planet and our labor, and the devastating human suffering required to maintain the status quo. What comes next is up to us. Although shaping the future may seem beyond our control, we have the power to demand a better economic design.
In this context, I have been reflecting on the importance of connection, relationships, and partnership, and their significance for our overall well-being and success. Our current economic system and culture are hyper-individualized and polarized. This is not a coincidence. It is by design.
We live in a time when people yearn for real connection and a sense of belonging. We know that we are living through a loneliness epidemic that was amplified by a worldwide pandemic, when our unit of connection was reduced to the people confined to our homes. Our sense of connection has been further tested by compounding crises, such as armed conflicts and climate change. Technology, which is supposed to connect us and make life easier, often increases loneliness, division, and isolation. Charlatans exploit our divisions to further their agendas of greed and hate. These conditions have created a world that feels less connected, more skeptical, and more cynical—a world where it is easier to “other” our neighbors than to meet them where they are.
The people barring us from the future we deserve will leverage all their power and resources to keep us from realizing that what binds us is far greater than what divides us.
My earliest memories living in the United States are of feeling othered. When I arrived in Los Angeles, my family home was the only place I felt secure and able to be myself. Those early days as an immigrant living in Los Angeles were difficult until I met Thomas. He was my neighbor, a Black kid my age who was always playing in the street. Despite not speaking the same language, Thomas and I became good friends. Soon, I too was playing in the street most of the day. Eventually our families started spending time together, sharing food, laughs, history, and responsibility for each other. Whether Thomas knew it or not, he enabled me to feel safe and comfortable in a foreign setting and I happily accepted his invitation to build friendship and community. The connection that my family developed with Thomas’ family was crucial to my success in the United States because I felt that other people in my community had my back.
I again experienced the power of connection when my family returned to Mexico City when I was 8. I felt like a foreigner in my own birthplace. I had a hard time relating to the culture: I spoke differently, I dressed differently, I again felt like I didn’t belong. Fortunately, I was quickly introduced to many cousins that lived in the neighborhood, who welcomed me into a thriving, connected community. We played in the street under the watchful eye of abuelas, merchants, and street vendors who knew us and our families. These relationships were fountains of information about neighborhood, city, and worldwide events. I remember experiencing major events—like Pope John Paul II’s visit, a solar eclipse in 1991, and the signing of the North America Free Trade Agreement—with this community. The neighborhood helped me to understand these events and simultaneously ease my fears and anxieties.
What do these experiences have to do with shared economic prosperity? I believe they illustrate themes fundamental to achieving it: connection, reciprocity, solidarity, mutuality, curiosity, empathy, openness, service, and love. We are taught that our economy is shaped by rules, practices, and systems that determine how goods and services are produced, sold, and bought. I believe our economy is shaped by how we relate to each other, what we value, and what we protect. If we want to have an economic system that looks out for everyone—a system of belonging and inclusion—we must improve how we relate to each other.
Improving our relationships, building community, cultivating belonging and mutual dependence; it is all key to achieving shared economic prosperity. It may seem daunting to overcome our current division and polarization, but it is not impossible. It starts with something seemingly simple but hard to practice genuinely: listening and embracing the opportunity to learn from people different from you.
I know I struggle letting my guard down, consistently wondering if new people I engage with align with my values and worldviews. I am most willing to listen, understand, and learn from different perspectives from the people I care about. But how different would our world be if we were capable of extending this type of human connection to the people beyond our inner circles?
I am not naive enough to think that everyone is interested in building a mutually beneficial relationship with me. I am not blind to the hate and indifference that some hold for their fellow humans. But I have to believe that most of us want similar life outcomes even if we talk about them or work toward them in different ways. I believe we all want a good life, the opportunity to provide for our family, meaningful purpose, the ability to leave this world better than we received it.
We won’t achieve those goals if we remain divided; it simply won’t happen. The people barring us from the future we deserve will leverage all their power and resources to keep us from realizing that what binds us is far greater than what divides us. They will do so because they know that if we were to find a way to overcome our differences, it will mean an end to their ability to hoard the abundance of this world. But we have the power to heal our democracy, to bridge our divides, and to build shared prosperity. It starts with improving our human connections.
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Trump Admin Announces $200 Million Contract for Musk's AI After Grok Hitler Incident
"Stop entertaining this man. Stop giving him money. It's really that simple," said one critic of Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth.
Jul 14, 2025
The U.S. government on Monday awarded a $200 million contract to Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, despite the tech billionaire's ongoing spat with President Donald Trump and his AI chatbot's recent praise for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
The Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office announced contract awards to Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and Musk's xAI "to accelerate Department of Defense (DOD) adoption of advanced AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges."
Last week, xAI garnered sweeping condemnation after Grok, the chatbot built into Musk's social media platform X—formerly known as Twitter—started spewing antisemitic content and calling itself "MechaHitler."
Meanwhile, Musk and Trump have been at odds since shortly after the richest man on Earth left the president's administration, in which he was the de facto leader of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Musk's involvement in the administration generated widespread concern, both because of DOGE's efforts to gut the federal government and because his various companies get so much money from federal contracts.
In a Monday statement about "Grok for Government," xAI not only confirmed the new DOD contract but also said that its products will be "available to purchase via the General Services Administration (GSA) schedule. This allows every federal government department, agency, or office, to access xAI's frontier AI products."
The Trump administration's new money for Musk drew intense criticism on various platforms, including X—where Congresswoman Becca Balint (D-Vt.) wrote that "despite the social media wars, the Trump-Elon corruption machine is alive and well."
Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive Democrat running in Illinois' 9th Congressional District, said: "Stop entertaining this man. Stop giving him money. It's really that simple."
Abughazaleh also pointed to her past with Musk—she was laid off from the nonprofit watchdog Media Matters for America as it faced financial strain from legal battles, including what the billionaire described as a "thermonuclear lawsuit."
"Elon Musk cost me my job, deposed me for being too mean to him online, and now he's responsible for tens of thousands of job losses while getting hundreds of millions of our tax dollars," she noted. "I'm running for Congress to stop men like him."
Nina Turner, a former progressive congressional candidate from Ohio, noted that "the Pentagon, which has failed seven straight audits, just gave $200,000,000 of our tax dollars to Elon Musk to use xAI. Meanwhile, funding for food banks [was] cut in the name of 'efficiency.'"
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