Trump administration reluctant to slow AI
Washington, USA—US President Donald Trump and key allies voiced opposition on Sunday to drastically curbing the development of artificial intelligence (AI), despite calls in recent days from leading industry figures to tap the brakes.
The rapid development of AI and the risks that the technology poses to humanity have exploded into the national conversation just weeks before midterm elections, in which technology has become a major flashpoint in campaigning.
During a visit to Ireland, Trump said he believed there were “a lot of negative forces … bringing up things that won’t happen.”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson warned that rushed regulation would put the United States at a disadvantage in what many are likening to an arms race for AI supremacy with China.
Losing that race would be “a threat to every single American,” he said on CNN on Sunday morning.
A furor erupted this month after a researcher publicly resigned from leading AI firm Anthropic over fears that the technology could escape human control.
‘Kill all humans’
Another Anthropic employee, who did not resign, stated publicly that “we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans,” and that he thought the chances were greater than “10 percent within the next decade.”
Amid the outcry, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on Saturday for AI companies to “pace the frontier”—or coordinate a slowdown in the technology’s development—to allow a better understanding of the risks arising.
Key among his concerns is so-called “recursive self improvement,” or when AI can build its own next generation.
“Left unchecked, it could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems, and so must be pursued very carefully, if at all,” Amodei wrote.
His chief competitors, xAI’s Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, publicly supported him.
Abandoned responsibility?
But the reaction was markedly different among the politicians with the authority to regulate the industry.
“We don’t need everybody to panic right now,” Johnson said on CNN. “We need to handle this new technology like we have others in the past, and make sure we’re doing everything we can responsibly to also not smother American innovation.”
Johnson called for a meeting in Congress with top AI executives to discuss the best regulatory regime.
“I’d do it tomorrow,” Johnson said.
Johnson was, at least in part, reacting to calls from prominent opposition Democrats who have called for the cancellation of congressional breaks in October so that lawmakers could work on AI safety legislation.
Echoing concerns about losing an arms race, Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, acknowledged the risk that rogue AI posed, but said “the far bigger risk” was that “a malevolent actor has access to an AI that’s better than the one we have that can protect us.”
But Democrats are crying foul.
“We certainly need to begin to act urgently to address the challenges that exist,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in an interview on Sunday on ABC. “And unfortunately, Republicans have abandoned their responsibility.”
