5 Pro-Family Proposals for the White House's AI Action Plan

The Institute for Family Studies recently submitted a public comment on AI in response to a request from the Trump Administration. On January 23, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order on “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” which lays out the administration’s goals to achieve AI global dominance. In the order, the President outlined three main purposes of “sustain[ing] and enhanc[ing] America’s global AI dominance”: to “promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.” 

Following this, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) published a formal Request for Information (RFI), calling for input from interested parties on the development of an “AI action plan” to accomplish the goals outlined above. The OSTP received almost 9,000 submissions in response the administration’s RFI, including our public comment, which we submitted on March 14. 

Drawing on the recent statement, “A Future for the Family,” which was signed by dozens of eminent conservative intellectuals, our comment focused on the policy objective of ensuring that AI contributes to human flourishing, and argued that human flourishing depends on a culture of thriving families. The family begets human children, and it is unmatched in its natural ability to raise them to be healthy and productive. There can be no policy to promote human flourishing that does not have the objective of empowering and advancing the well-being of families. Conversely, any technological program that undermines the family is opposed to human flourishing. 

The advancement of human flourishing in the era of AI will require the government to make deliberate policy choices. Today, AI poses significant challenges to the family. AI companies are developing 21st century ed tech (which may or may not benefit the family), commercializing sexual companions, making social media algorithms manipulative and addictive, and advancing new techniques for gene editing and embryo selection. Likewise, some predict that AI and robotics have the potential to replace millions of American jobs. Forthcoming research at IFS underscores the close connection between men having access to “good jobs” and being marriageable. 

By developing a policy framework up front that prioritizes the family in AI development and governance, the Trump Administration can strengthen the American family with the benefits of the technology, while protecting it from exploitation by the same means. To that end, our comment outlined five policy proposals for how the administration might regulate and develop AI to ensure a better future for the family and human flourishing: 

1. Establish the President’s Council on Technology and the Family; 
2. Require family impact and opportunity assessments; 
3. Incorporate a family-focused strategy and personnel in AI research and development; 
4. Balance automation with investments in job recovery and skill development; and 
5. Protect minors from AI-related harms.  

These policy actions will enable the Trump administration to evaluate and monitor AI’s effect on the family on an ongoing basis and recommend further policy actions that can empower families to flourish in an era of AI. 

Download the full public comment, here.