The Trump administration on Monday pushed back against calls to heavily regulate artificial intelligence — including appeals from former President Barack Obama — arguing that alarming warnings from industry leaders and Democrats are a coordinated election-year ploy.
President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance questioned the timing and coordination of a series of warnings from AI leaders about the threat to humanity they say will arise unless the government restrains the advancement of artificial intelligence.
Mr. Trump pushed back hard against the sudden regulation frenzy, calling the AI pile-on “no different” from the false allegations that he colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election, “and all the other HOAXES and SCAMS that America was forced to endure through the Destructionists’ and Deviants’ foul play and illegal conduct.”
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Mr. Vance said the sudden move by AI tech companies “begging” for government regulation “feels a little bit to me like a Trojan horse.”
Democrats are moving to thrust AI regulation to the top of their agenda weeks before the November midterm elections, as polls show Americans are worried about the technology.
A YouGov poll published Monday found half of respondents were concerned AI could cause “the end of the human race,” and 67% said AI technology is advancing too quickly.
Congressional Democrats are heeding the call of Mr. Obama, who, according to The New York Times, told them at a private fundraiser that AI could become “dangerous” if not regulated.
Mr. Obama urged House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, to make AI regulation central to the party’s agenda.
On Monday, Mr. Jeffries held a news conference and said Congress should not adjourn to campaign for the upcoming elections “until something is done decisively to protect the safety and the well-being of the American people in the face of growing concerns being raised by experts within the artificial intelligence industry itself.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, called for a closed-door briefing on purported AI threats and demanded “serious guardrails” on AI development to protect the public.
Democrats moved to act the day after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, speaking Sunday on CBS, called for “some kind of oversight, some kind of joint governance” to regulate AI advancement.
Mr. Amodei’s remarks followed an essay he published warning that within a year, unregulated AI could produce a swarm of bots capable of taking over the internet and causing billions of dollars in economic damage.
On Sept. 8, Jacob Coxon resigned from his position as an AI researcher at Anthropic and warned on X that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said his company “welcomes a federal framework that sets up consistent safety requirements for frontier AI” and that it would need help from the U.S. government “for international coordination.”
Skeptics, however, are questioning the sudden alarmism from industry insiders who are calling on the government to regulate the technology.
David Sacks, who served as White House AI and crypto czar and now co-chairs the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, called on the heads of Anthropic and OpenAI to regulate themselves without government oversight if they believe the pace of AI development is moving too fast.
“If the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you should slow down, I support your decision to be responsible,” Mr. Sacks said on X. “But stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission … stop pretending the motivation to slow down is purely altruistic.”
Mr. Sacks accused the two AI giants of manipulating public sentiment and lawmakers to secure antitrust exemptions and regulations that shield them from competition and liability in the event of a massive cyberattack by a rogue AI.
“So go ahead and pace the frontier; you are the ones setting it,” he said. “If you don’t, we’ll know this was just another bid for regulatory capture — or an election season psyop.”
Mr. Trump phoned Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Monday as Mr. Huang sat before a crowd on stage at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles alongside Mr. Sacks and the hosts of the All-In podcast.
Mr. Huang put the president on speakerphone, and Mr. Trump told the audience the AI doomsday warnings are “a hoax.” He said the technology and data centers are “great” and make people and states wealthy.
“AI is bigger than the internet,” Mr. Trump said, and opponents “are playing right into the hands of China.”
Mr. Trump told the crowd, “We’re not going to let that happen,” and Mr. Huang responded, “You’re right. We are not going to let that happen, sir.”
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