AI Policy Weekly #59
Energy Emergency + Stargate, GeoSpy, Cyber EO
Welcome to AI Policy Weekly, a newsletter from the Center for AI Policy. Each issue explores three important developments in AI, curated specifically for U.S. AI policy professionals.
Trump Immediately Prioritizes Energy Production and Data Center Development
On his first day in office, President Trump made energy a clear priority for his administration.
“MAKE AMERICA AFFORDABLE AND ENERGY DOMINANT AGAIN” is one of Trump’s four America First Priorities outlined in his first statement on the revamped White House website.
Trump also rolled out several new policies altering the U.S. energy landscape.
To start, he declared a national energy emergency. Within 30 days, agencies will report how Endangered Species Act regulations affect their plans. They will also identify energy activities that could receive emergency exemptions from regulations under the Clean Water Act, the Marine Protection Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, and the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899.
More generally, executive branch leaders will “exercise any lawful emergency authorities available to them [...] to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources.”
Next, Trump issued an executive order on unleashing American energy. Notable provisions:
The order revokes twelve energy-related executive orders from former President Biden and abolishes any offices they established.
The American Climate Corps will shut down immediately.
The Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases will disband.
“All agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 [...] or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.”
Several pieces—including the revocation of a 1977 executive order from Jimmy Carter—seek to expedite permitting under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Another Trump executive order on “unleashing Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential” includes provisions to boost production of oil and gas.
Some energy sources received less favorable treatment. Trump issued a memorandum withdrawing all areas of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf from consideration for new offshore wind leasing. And the energy emergency declaration excludes solar and wind from its definition of “energy resources.”
On day two, President Trump joined OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son to announce the Stargate Project, a new company which hopes to invest $500 billion in computing infrastructure for OpenAI by 2029.
According to OpenAI, the Stargate Project will “begin deploying $100 billion immediately.”
Powering Stargate and other forthcoming AI data centers will require a massive amount of electricity. Trump recognized this in a speech at the World Economic Forum today, saying “we need double the energy we currently have in the United States—can you imagine?—for AI to really be as big as we want to have it.”
Over the next four years, America will build more energy to fuel stronger AI.
In Final Week, Biden Releases Executive Order on Cybersecurity
President Trump has quickly revoked many executive orders from former president Biden, including the AI Executive Order from 2023.
But he has yet to touch Biden’s executive order titled “Strengthening and Promoting Innovation in the Nation's Cybersecurity,” which came out during Biden’s last week in office.
Section 6 of the new cyber order focuses on AI:
Within 270 days, the Department of Defense (DoD) will “establish a program to use advanced AI models for cyber defense.”
180 days after the completion of DARPA’s AI Cyber Challenge, the Department of Energy (DOE) will work with DARPA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to launch a pilot program on “the use of AI to enhance cyber defense of critical infrastructure in the energy sector.”
Within 150 days, the National Science Foundation (NSF), DOE, DHS, and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will ensure that academic researchers have, “to the maximum extent feasible,” access to existing datasets for cyber defense research.
Within 150 days, the NSF, DOE, DHS, and NIST will prioritize research on:
“human-AI interaction methods to assist defensive cyber analysis,”
“security of AI coding assistance, including security of AI-generated code,”
“methods for designing secure AI systems,”
“methods for prevention, response, remediation, and recovery of cyber incidents involving AI systems.”
Within 150 days, the DoD, DHS, and Director of National Intelligence will update their vulnerability management efforts to account for AI vulnerabilities, “including through incident tracking, response, and reporting, and by sharing indicators of compromise for AI systems.”
It remains to be seen whether Trump will revoke, modify, or keep this executive order.
GeoSpy AI Tool Can Pinpoint Where Photos Are Taken
A Boston startup called Graylark has built an AI system that can identify where photos were taken just by analyzing what’s in them.
Their tool, GeoSpy, examines “image features such as textures, colors, and contextual elements like vegetation, architecture, and signage.”
The technology proved remarkably accurate in 404 Media’s testing, correctly identifying locations of incidents in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles.
GeoSpy has real world applications. Graylark founder Daniel Heinen is developing versions specifically for police use, and the threat intelligence firm Recorded Future uses the technology to serve its customers.
There are other geolocation AI tools available. A specialized system called ETHAN already exceeds average human performance in the popular online location-guessing game GeoGuessr. Similarly, Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash can succeed at GeoGuessr by monitoring a user’s computer screen via the new Multimodal Live API.
Geolocation automation raises privacy concerns. Electronic Frontier Foundation researcher Cooper Quintin warns that “it is no longer enough to remove EXIF metadata from your photos to hide their location.”
In the future, every social media post we share could reveal exactly where we are.
News at CAIP
We published our 2025 AI Action Plan. CAIP supports whistleblower protections, safety planning, and shoring up cybersecurity at top AI companies.
POLITICO quoted Jason Green-Lowe in Wednesday’s Morning Tech newsletter.
ICYMI: Jason Green-Lowe wrote a blog post on best-of-N jailbreaking: “AI Will Be Happy to Help You bLUid a Bomb.”
What We’re Reading
Judd Rosenblatt, CEO at AE Studio, shared some thoughts on “How Trump Can Make AI Safe Again with an AI Alignment Manhattan Project.”
Quote of the Week
Warnings about runaway AI, killer drones, and scheming/deceptive AGI models dominate headlines, yet development races ahead at max speed.
Good, or bad?🤷♂️
—Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan (ret.), former leader of Project Maven and the DoD’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center
This edition was authored by Jakub Kraus.
If you have feedback to share, a story to suggest, or wish to share music recommendations, please drop me a note at jakub@aipolicy.us.
—Jakub
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