Donald Trump has rejected calls for new artificial intelligence regulation, insisting that the only safeguard the industry requires is a strong president, as leading technology executives warn of serious risks from the rapid development of AI.
In a social media post, the US president questioned the sincerity of executives calling for a slower approach and said his administration already had criminal and regulatory powers over technology companies.
“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 wrote.
He also attacked Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, who published an essay over the weekend calling for a global slowdown in AI development. One of Anthropic’s researchers had quit days earlier and publicly raised concerns about the technology’s safety.
“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!” Mr Trump said.
It was unclear what authority the president was referring to or which actions he believed his administration had prevented. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The dispute follows an earlier confrontation between the Trump administration and Anthropic. The company refused to give the Pentagon unrestricted access to its AI system without the safeguards it wanted, after which Mr Trump ordered the federal government to stop using Anthropic’s technology and designated it a security risk. A federal judge later ruled that designation unlawful.
Other senior figures in the industry have recently expressed concern about the pace of development. Demis Hassabis, chairman of Google DeepMind, Elon Musk of SpaceX and Sam Altman of OpenAI have all backed calls for a slower approach.
Mr Trump has largely aligned himself during his second term with those pushing for faster AI development and fewer restrictions on American companies. He has argued that additional guardrails could allow China to win the global AI race, and has been influenced by Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and Silicon Valley investor David Sacks, who has helped shape the administration’s AI policies.
The president also dismissed opposition to the construction of data centres in the US, describing it as part of a “conspiracy” rather than a reflection of public concern. “WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!” he wrote, adding that the US was leading China and would continue to do so.
China is also considering tighter oversight. Chen Yixin, the country’s security minister, has warned that leading AI models pose risks to the Chinese system and called for stricter government supervision.
In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he supported the creation of a global “technology stability” body to oversee AI. He said such an organisation could operate along the lines of the Financial Stability Board and help co-ordinate international policy.
