Trump Rejects 3 AI Chiefs' Slowdown Push as He Cites U.S.-China Race
Updated
Updated · The Washington Post · Sep 13
Trump Rejects 3 AI Chiefs' Slowdown Push as He Cites U.S.-China Race
3 articles · Updated · The Washington Post · Sep 13
Summary
Trump said the United States should not slow AI development, arguing on Sunday that staying ahead of China matters because “whoever wins AI wins.”
The stance directly rebuffed a joint appeal a day earlier from Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and xAI’s Elon Musk to ease the pace of model-capability gains.
That push followed the resignation of an Anthropic researcher who warned major AI firms were developing systems irresponsibly, intensifying debate over the technology’s risks.
Trump cast those warnings as driven by “negative forces,” even as Democrats and some Republicans have grown more critical of his administration’s hands-off approach.
David Sacks, who shaped that light-touch policy, said companies can slow development voluntarily but rejected their call for Washington-backed coordination, including antitrust waivers for safety talks.
With billions in AI infrastructure projects blocked by public outrage, will grassroots resistance accidentally derail the global technological arms race?
As malicious actors weaponize AI for cyberattacks, could ignoring safety warnings trigger a catastrophic digital meltdown before the decade ends?