Google releases its proposal for the White House's AI Action Plan, arguing that “fair use and text-and-data mining exceptions” are “critical” to AI development

Google, following on the heels of OpenAI, published a policy proposal in response to the Trump Administration's call for a national “AI Action Plan.”

TechCrunch 2025-03-14 Kyle Wiggers

Context & Ripple Effects

Google’s submission follows OpenAI’s White House policy recommendations and puts training-data access alongside broader competitiveness arguments being made to the administration. The immediate policy dispute is not just how AI is governed, but whether model developers retain a reliable legal basis for learning from copyrighted material.

The later Action Plan emphasized infrastructure and national competitiveness, while the subsequent framework called for federal preemption of state AI laws. Google’s intervention shows that copyright and text-and-data-mining rules were an early input into that wider federal AI-policy agenda.

First-order effects

Google formally places fair use and text-and-data-mining exceptions among its priorities for the White House plan, seeking policy certainty for AI training.
Copyright holders and AI developers are pushed into a more explicit policy contest over the legal terms on which training data can be used.

Second-order effects

OpenAI and other model developers gain a prominent ally in advocating a federal approach that protects access to training material, rather than leaving the issue to a fragmented set of state rules.
Any White House endorsement of these principles would increase pressure on publishers, creators, and licensing intermediaries to pursue compensation or access terms through policy and commercial channels.

Third-order effects

If federal AI policy increasingly treats training-data access as a competitiveness input, copyright policy may become part of AI industrial policy rather than a dispute resolved primarily through individual rights-holder negotiations.
The durable fault line will be whether US AI leadership is pursued through broad legal exceptions, negotiated licensing markets, or a hybrid of both; this proposal argues clearly for the first path.

The trend: AI companies are turning training-data law into a core industrial-policy issue, linking copyright exceptions to national AI competitiveness.

Discussion

@scottsantens.com Scott Santens on bluesky
It was always inevitable that AI would be trained on all our work whether we liked it or not. There's too much money at stake in this. It's also always been inevitable that job displacement will happen. We have to make sure that AI works for all of us via universal basic incom…
@richardlittler Richard Littler on bluesky
“Art thief declares race to accumulate stolen artworks “over” if stealing from art galleries and people's private homes isn't fair” — arstechnica.com/tech-policy/ ...
@the-jaguarr @the-jaguarr on bluesky
AI itself could potentially be a wonderful thing if it were being developed by ethical, thoughtful, smart people who believed in the betterment of all. But it's not. Not in the slightest. Quite the opposite, really. — arstechnica.com/tech-policy/ ...
@max.is.a.cutie.fyi @max.is.a.cutie.fyi on bluesky
google be like: let us be evil, let us steal other people's content in peace, it's for “science” — :/ [embedded post]
r/agi r on reddit
OpenAI declares AI race “over” if training on copyrighted works isn't fair use
r/singularity r on reddit
OpenAI declares AI race “over” if training on copyrighted works isn't fair use: Ars Technica
@ruslantrad Ruslan Trad on bluesky
“OpenAI describes Chinese AI lab DeepSeek as “state-subsidized” and “state-controlled,” and recommends that the U.S. government consider banning models from the outfit and similar People's Republic of China (PRC)-supported operations.”
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on bluesky
If you can't compete with them, ban them.
@lukaszolejnik Lukasz Olejnik on bluesky
It's of course not true that the use of DeepSeek model is risky for user privacy. Such models can be hosted and run in any country in the world-including in the U.S. or the EU, or even on a user's computer, locally. [embedded post]
@FSonder@mastodon.ie Frank Sonderborg on mastodon
Not fair, not fair at all. Coming over here and getting better results with cheaper equipment. Stealing our stolen data with out even asking us;-O — https://techcrunch.com/...
@vishvanands Vishvanand Subramanian on threads
trying hard to steelman this position from openai but unless it's possible to hide malware in the model weights, what exactly is the risk of downloading open source models from china? apart from the obvious risk to openai trying to charge 2000 a month for a product deepseek will…
@parkert Parker Thompson on threads
Presumably they mean the SaaS product, which you definitely shouldn't give any sensitive data to. — The open source product is cool, partially because Chinese censorship and American censorship are very different so they can do complimentary things. And good luck banning that.…
@thezvi Zvi Mowshowitz on x
I cannot overstate how terrible the vibes are in @OpenAI 's submission. Their statement is basically vice signaling throughout.
@peterwildeford Peter Wildeford on x
The @AnthropicAI and @OpenAI submissions to the US gov have different vibes about the seriousness of risks and how the US government should react to them Anthropic: if there's large biorisk, mandate testing OpenAI: incentivize voluntary testing through offering govt contracts [im…
@xlr8harder @xlr8harder on x
Hi OpenAI friends, you should feel bad about this
@deliprao @deliprao on x
I have never seen a company and a CEO more insecure than this
@kalomaze @kalomaze on x
ah, so when a chinese company publishes their production codebases & models under permissive licenses, only then should you cry about foul play. really provocative technique they are going with here
@dorialexander Alexander Doria on x
This will fare very well in Europe.
@andrewcurran_ Andrew Curran on x
They also argue for banning the use of PRC-produced models within Tier 1 countries that ‘violate user privacy and create security risks such as the risk of IP theft.’ This is an anti-Whale harpoon. [image]
@josephjacks_ @josephjacks_ on x
OpenAI definitely doesn't distill. OpenAI definitely doesn't train on copyrighted data. OpenAI definitely doesn't want to ban competition. OpenAI definitely wants what's best for humanity. OpenAI is the best AI and the most aligned AI and everything is awesome.
@thenormanmu Norman Mu on x
pretty disingenuous to conflate the R1 model with the web chat app. from the proposal: [image]
@kimmonismus @kimmonismus on x
Wow. How the mighty have fallen.
r/stupidpol r on reddit
OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models
r/DeepSeek r on reddit
OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models
r/accelerate r on reddit
OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models.
r/ChatGPT r on reddit
OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models
r/China r on reddit
OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models
r/singularity r on reddit
OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models
r/technology r on reddit
OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models
r/artificial r on reddit
OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models
r/LocalLLaMA r on reddit
OpenAI calls DeepSeek ‘state-controlled,’ calls for bans on ‘PRC-produced’ models | TechCrunch

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