---
type: source
title: "Fission for Algorithms: How Nuclear Regulatory Frameworks Are Being Undermined for AI Infrastructure"
author: "AI Now Institute"
url: https://ainowinstitute.org/reports/fission-for-algorithms
date: 2025-11-01
domain: grand-strategy
secondary_domains: [energy]
format: report
status: unprocessed
priority: high
tags: [nuclear-regulation, ai-infrastructure, governance-laundering, data-centers, regulatory-capture, NRC, arms-race-narrative, belief-1]
---

## Content

Report documents how the White House used "AI arms race" narrative to systematically dismantle nuclear safety regulatory frameworks to support AI data center expansion.

**Specific regulatory mechanisms being weakened:**

1. **Safety standard rollback:** White House May 2025 executive order seeks to dismantle the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model and the "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" (ALARA) principle — foundational Cold War-era radiation protection standards

2. **Accelerated licensing timelines:** Executive order mandates "no more than 18 months for final decision on an application to construct and operate a new reactor of any type," regardless of whether safety records exist for prospective designs

3. **Categorical exclusions:** "Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies" executive order authorizes categorical exclusions under NEPA for nuclear reactor construction on federal sites, bypassing NRC review

**Governance capture mechanism:**
- Feb 2025 "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" order enabled OMB oversight of previously independent agencies including NRC — political mechanism allowing enforcement of positions NRC would have independently rejected
- Executive order requires NRC to consult DoD and DoE — agencies incentivized to accelerate nuclear deployment for AI — regarding radiation exposure limits, effectively ceding independent regulatory authority
- DoE Reactor Pilot Program creates reactors "that will not require Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing," with DOE-approved designs fast-tracked for future NRC licensing

**The governance laundering extension:** The AI arms race narrative is being weaponized not just to weaken AI governance but to undermine nuclear safety governance built during the actual Cold War — the era when nuclear risk was most acute.

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This extends the governance laundering pattern beyond AI governance into physical infrastructure regulation. The AI arms race narrative is now the justification for dismantling nuclear safety standards that predate the AI era entirely. This is governance laundering operating through second-order effects: AI competition → weakens nuclear safety → risks that nuclear safety was designed to prevent.

**What surprised me:** The sophistication of the capture mechanism. It's not just "fewer rules" — it's using executive orders to make independent agencies politically accountable to agencies with opposite incentive structures (NRC consulting DoD on radiation limits). The governance form (NRC exists, licensing process exists) is preserved while the substance (independent safety review) is hollowed out.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Evidence of NRC resistance or pushback against the political capture mechanism. The report describes structural capture, not contested territory.

**KB connections:**
- [[efficiency optimization converts resilience into fragility across five independent infrastructure domains]] — nuclear safety is another infrastructure domain being converted from resilience to fragility via optimization pressure
- [[global capitalism functions as a misaligned optimizer]] — the AI arms race narrative functions as a Molochian race-to-the-bottom on nuclear safety
- Governance laundering across three levels (Session 04-06) — this adds a FOURTH level: infrastructure regulatory capture via arms race narrative

**Extraction hints:**
1. CLAIM CANDIDATE: "The AI arms race narrative is weaponized to undermine non-AI governance frameworks — nuclear safety regulation is being dismantled via 'AI infrastructure urgency' framing, extending governance laundering beyond AI policy into Cold War-era safety standards that predate AI entirely" (confidence: proven for specific regulatory changes, domain: grand-strategy)
2. ENRICHMENT: The multi-level governance laundering claim from Session 04-06 now has a fourth level — infrastructure regulation — in addition to international treaty, corporate self-governance, and domestic AI regulation
3. FLAG @Astra: Nuclear reactor fast-tracking for AI data centers intersects with energy domain (nuclear renaissance claims). The energy-AI interaction here is specifically about AI demand driving regulatory rollback, not clean energy provision.

## Curator Notes
PRIMARY CONNECTION: Multi-level governance laundering pattern (Session 04-06 synthesis) + [[efficiency optimization converts resilience into fragility]]
WHY ARCHIVED: Second-order governance laundering: AI arms race narrative undermining regulatory frameworks outside AI domain. Fourth level of the governance laundering pattern.
EXTRACTION HINT: The mechanism matters more than the nuclear specifics. The AI arms race narrative can justify dismantling ANY safety governance framework. The extractor should focus on the mechanism (arms race narrative → independent regulatory capture) rather than nuclear specifics.
