Topline
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Monday questioned sudden calls from tech leaders to slow down the development of AI models, with Trump calling concerns over safety risks a “HOAX, no different from RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA” or his impeachment trials.
Vance said he feels calls from AI leaders to slow down the development of AI technology is “a bit of a Trojan Horse.” (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein-Pool/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Key Facts
In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump said growing concerns AI could destroy humanity are a “HOAX, no different from RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA — UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE — IMPEACHMENT HOAX #1 — IMPEACHMENT HOAX #2,” or other “SCAMS that America was forced to endure.”
Trump claimed AI will be the “Greatest Economic Development Engine in History,” bigger than gold or oil, also questioning “when, in the History of Business,” industry leaders have asked for regulations that would “drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy.”
Trump had alleged in a post on Truth Social earlier Monday that there is a “SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers,” dismissing the need for additional “guardrails” because he says the United States already has “tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies.”
Earlier Monday, Vance told reporters he feels “a little bit weird” about AI companies “begging the government to regulate them,” saying it feels like “a bit of a Trojan Horse.”
Both Trump and Vance said the United States needs to keep its competitive advantage in AI over China, with Vance saying the U.S. must remain “ahead of the curve.”
“Any technology has risks,” Vance said after a reporter asked whether Americans should be “scared” about the rapid advancement of AI, asserting Trump wants to be “smart about making sure we stay on top of the risks.”
Days earlier, some of the AI industry’s most powerful leaders, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceXAI founder Elon Musk, endorsed a slowdown of AI development, citing potential safety risks.
crucial quote
“WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS,” Trump said on Truth Social, adding, “We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!”
Trump Dismisses AI Concerns
Trump has dismissed growing concerns about the rapid advancement of AI technology multiple times in recent days, saying Sunday AI is “going to be more good than bad, but by a lot.” “We’re leading China in AI, we’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly I want to keep it that way,” Trump said Sunday, appearing to brush off calls for additional “guardrails.” He blamed unnamed “negative forces” for raising concerns about AI, alleging they are “bringing up things that won’t happen.” Trump similarly told reporters last week he is not concerned about AI leading to human extinction and declared “if we don’t win AI, we’re going to be put in a very bad position.”
AI Leaders Call For Slowdown
Top AI leaders issued calls for a slowdown in the advancement of AI technology over the weekend, citing potential safety risks, days after multiple AI company staffers issued stark warnings about the possibility of AI technology causing human extinction. Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic researcher, resigned last week and said in a viral X post—viewed more than 171 million times—that both OpenAI and Anthropic are “gambling with our lives.” “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” Coxon warned. Evan Hubinger, alignment science lead at Anthropic, reshared Coxon’s post and said, “we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans,” putting the chance at human extinction within the next decade at greater than 10%. Amodei warned in a blog post the “entire internet” could be taken over by AI bots within six to 12 months, “potentially causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.” “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Amodei said, citing the OpenAI hack of Hugging Face technology as an example of an incident that could have caused “catastrophic damage.” Musk said in a post on X that Amodei is “right,” adding in a follow-up post “there should be some oversight,” suggesting “peer review of AI by competitors.” Altman posted on X: “I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” adding his proposal for “independent evaluators with employee-like access is a great idea.”
tangent
China rebuffed calls for an AI development slowdown. In a press briefing Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said “fearmongering, confrontation and vicious competition” will disrupt “global governance of artificial intelligence,” according to a Bloomberg translation. AI is expected to be a key topic of discussion when Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the United States later this month.
further reading
China Pushes Back Against AI Slowdown Talks, Alleging ‘Fearmongering’ (Forbes)
Billionaire Anthropic CEO Urges Competitors To Slow Down AI Development (Forbes)
Leave a comment