The Justice Department has announced that it is intervening on xAI’s behalf in the company’s recent lawsuit against the state of Colorado. xAI first filed the lawsuit in early April in response to a recent Colorado law that requires developers of “high risk” AI systems (for example, those used in health care, employment or housing) to disclose and mitigate the risk of algorithmic discrimination in their systems. The law is scheduled to go into effect in June, and the DOJ is now asking the Colorado District Court to declare it unconstitutional.
In XAI’s original argument, Colorado bill SB24-205 violated the company’s First Amendment rights by forcing its developers to change the way they create AI products and to align their products with Colorado’s views on diversity and discrimination. The DOJ acknowledges those concerns in its complaint, but focuses its argument specifically on the idea that the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
According to the DOJ, because the law relies on demographics and “statistical disparities” as evidence of discrimination, it would essentially require developers to distort the output of AI systems and “discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, and other protected characteristics”, a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The department also positions Colorado’s law as a risk to “the United States’ position as a global AI leader”, a title the current administration is committed to preserving.
As both an AI cheerleader and enabler, the Trump administration has been particularly sensitive to the notion of diversity, equity, and inclusion involved in AI. President Donald Trump signed several executive orders after announcing his “AI Action Plan” in 2025, specifically calling on government agencies to use AI tools that avoid “ideological dogmas like DEI.” He also called for the creation of a task force that could challenge state AI regulation in favor of a federal regulatory framework for AI. The irony is that the DOJ’s reasoning, and the administration’s stance in general, is equally idealistic, just kind of ahistorical, and ignores the negative effects of discrimination in America.
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