President Trump on Monday rejected calls from leading artificial intelligence executives for new limits on the technology, writing on social media that the only guardrail the industry needed it already had: “a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT.”
Mr. Trump inserted himself into the intensifying national debate over how to handle a rapidly evolving technology that researchers and industry leaders say poses major risks like mass unemployment, a new wave of biological weapons and autonomous warfare. The president did not address those risks directly. Instead, he questioned the sincerity of the executives who have been calling to slow the technology’s development.
“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” Mr. Trump posted. “The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’ — and we will continue to do so!
“We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!” he added.
It was not clear what authority Mr. Trump was referring to, or what actions he believes his administration has already blocked. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Over the weekend, Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, a leading A.I. company whose founders have long warned about the technology’s dangers, published an essay that called for a global slowdown of artificial intelligence development. Days earlier, one of Anthropic’s researchers quit and went public over his fears about the safety of the technology.
Other A.I. chiefs have voiced their own concerns in recent days. Demis Hassabis, the chairman of Google DeepMind; Elon Musk of SpaceX; and Sam Altman of OpenAI have all endorsed calls for a slower pace.
Mr. Trump has spent much of his second term aligning himself with A.I. accelerationists who have been pushing the U.S. government to clear away obstacles to growth. He has been influenced in particular by Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the chipmaker Nvidia, and David Sacks, a Silicon Valley investor who played a major role in shaping the administration’s policies on A.I.
The president has embraced their arguments that imposing additional guardrails on American companies would allow China to “win” the A.I. race.
Beijing, however, has its own anxieties about the technology — and they may lead to more regulation, not less. Chen Yixin, China’s security minister, recently warned that the leading A.I. models pose risks to the Chinese system and called for stricter government oversight.
Mr. Trump has also dismissed the domestic backlash to the industry’s growth. He claimed in his social media post on Monday that widespread opposition to the building of data centers — a major political issue emerging across the United States ahead of the midterm elections — is part of a “conspiracy” rather than the outgrowth of genuine public anxiety.
“There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China,” the president posted. “WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!”
Elsewhere, governments are moving toward stricter oversight. Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada told Bloomberg News on Monday that he favored the creation of a global “technology stability” body to oversee artificial intelligence.
“There’s a need for coordination,” Mr. Carney said in the interview. “Ultimately, a technology stability board, in our view, along the lines of the Financial Stability Board would make sense.”
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