OpenAI wants the US government to ensure it has access to any data it wants to train GenAI models, and to stop foreign countries from trying to enforce copyright rules against it and other American AI firms.
The ChatGPT developer submitted an open letter full of proposals to the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) regarding the Trump administration's AI Action Plan, currently under development.
It outlines the company's views on how the White House can support the US AI industry. This includes putting in place a regulatory regime – but one that "ensures the freedom to innovate," of course; an export strategy to let America exert control over its allies while locking out enemies like China; and adopting measures to drive growth, including for federal agencies to "set an example" on adoption.
The suggestions regarding copyright display a certain amount of hubris. It talks up the "longstanding fair use doctrine" of American copyright law, and claims this is "even more critical to continued American leadership on AI in the wake of recent events in the PRC," presumably referring to the interest generated by China's DeepSeek earlier this year.
America has so many AI startups because the fair use doctrine promotes AI development, OpenAI says, while "rigid copyright rules are repressing innovation and investment," in other markets, singling out the European Union for allowing "opt-outs" for rights holders.
The company previously claimed it would be "impossible" to build top-tier AI models that meet today's needs without using people's copyrighted work.
It proposes that the US government "take steps to ensure that our copyright system continues to support American AI leadership," and that it shapes international policy discussions around copyright and AI, "to prevent less innovative countries from imposing their legal regimes on American AI firms and slowing our rate of progress."
Not content with that, OpenAI wants the US government to actively assess the level of data available to American AI firms and "determine whether other countries are restricting American companies' access to data and other critical inputs."
Dr Ilia Kolochenko, CEO at ImmuniWeb and an Adjunct Professor of Cybersecurity at Capitol Technology University in Maryland, expressed concern over OpenAI's proposals.
"Arguably, the most problematic issue with the proposal – legally, practically, and socially speaking – is copyright," Kolochenko told The Register.
"Paying a truly fair fee to all authors – whose copyrighted content has already been or will be used to train powerful LLM models that are eventually aimed at competing with those authors – will probably be economically unviable," he claimed, as AI vendors "will never make profits."
Advocating for a special regime or copyright exception for AI technologies is a slippery slope, he argues, adding that US lawmakers should regard OpenAI's proposals with a high degree of caution, mindful of the long-lasting consequences it may have on the American economy and legal system.
OpenAI also proposes maintaining the three-tiered AI diffusion rule framework, but with some alterations to encourage other nations to commit "to deploy AI in line with democratic principles set out by the US government."
The stated aim of this strategy is "to encourage global adoption of democratic AI principles, promoting the use of democratic AI systems while protecting US advantage."
OpenAI talks of expanding market share in Tier I countries (US allies) through the use of "American commercial diplomacy policy," banning the use of China-made equipment (think Huawei) and so on.
The company also proposes "AI Economic Zones" to be created in America by local, state, and the federal government together with industry, which sounds similar to the UK government's "AI Growth Zones."
These will be intended to "speed up the permitting for building AI infrastructure like new solar arrays, wind farms, and nuclear reactors," and would allow exclusions from the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to evaluate the environmental impacts of their actions.
Finally, OpenAI proposes that federal agencies should "lead by example" on AI adoption. Uptake in federal departments and agencies remains "unacceptably low," the company says, and wants to see the "removal of known blockers to the adoption of AI tools, including outdated and lengthy accreditation processes, restrictive testing authorities, and inflexible procurement pathways." ®