Will the United States ever regulate artificial intelligence? If President Donald Trump gets his way, it doesn’t look likely. Corporations in the United States have invested quite a lot of money in AI, all in their quest to cut labor costs and make more money.
Unfortunately, many of these big corporations have utilized AI to get their way — even if it means harming the average American citizen. Even more regrettably, it doesn’t appear as if the Trump administration, an administration that ran on fixing the economy and lowering costs, is going to rein in these companies and their use of AI.
To further get away with squeezing every penny out of the American worker, corporations have now begun to use both AI and the First Amendment to get away with what used to be illegal.
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Raising Rent By Using AI
Perhaps most notable is how many landlords have begun to use RealPage’s AI system to raise rent. Though a New York state law was passed to stop the $3.8 billion increase in annual rent seen nationwide, RealPage is now asking to see this law overturned.
The tech giant is using the First Amendment as why this law should be done away with. According to the suit, AI companies have the right, as given to them by the Constitution, to collude with renters to raise rent. RealPage has claimed that this law is an “unconstitutional ban on lawful speech.”
The main issue here is collusion — which is why former President Joe Biden’s DOJ once had a federal antitrust lawsuit open on RealPage. About one in four rental companies uses RealPage’s AI system for pricing. This has led to RealPage all but eliminating competition among landlords, and renters being forced to see their rent skyrocket.
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The Use of the First Amendment to Hide Wrongdoing
RealPage isn’t the only corporation using the First Amendment to hide — or get away with — their wrongdoing. ExxonMobil is suing California to allow it to hide how much it pollutes the Earth, as they believe it’s their First Amendment right.
Meanwhile, food corporations are now stating that it’s against their free speech for regulators to restrict how their products are advertised.
The utilization of the First Amendment to manipulate Americans is maddening, to say the least. However, for an AI tech giant like RealPage to do so is even more infuriating. How can an AI system have the right to help landlords collude and to all but eliminate competition within the housing industry?
Trump, who ran on affordability, likely won’t step in to stop these corporations. After all, the president has been big on AI from the get-go — and now even wants to pass an executive order that would make it impossible for states to pass laws that regulate AI companies in any way. Where are the states’ rights conservatives now?
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