Trump dismisses AI slowdown warnings, asserts US leadership in technology
President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected calls for a moratorium on artificial intelligence development, emphasizing U.S. competitiveness with China, while tech CEOs urged caution.
President Donald Trump said on Sunday that concerns about artificial intelligence running out of control were overstated, describing the warnings as coming from "negative forces" that predict outcomes that will not occur. Speaking at his golf resort in Doonbeg, Ireland, he asserted that the United States is "leading China in AI" and is "the most sophisticated country in the world," adding that maintaining this lead is essential because "whoever wins AI, wins."
"We can put guardrails, we can do this and that. But I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn't be bringing it up," Trump said, without specifying who he meant.
House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed the sentiment in a CNN interview, arguing that a congressional moratorium would jeopardize the U.S. position relative to China. He called for technology firms to take the initiative in creating safer AI systems.
"If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China. And that is a threat to every single American. So, we've got to have balance. We got to have steady hands at the wheel," Johnson said.
The remarks came after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging slower development of AI capabilities, citing risks of loss of control, cyber-attacks and bioterrorism, and recommending international cooperation and third-party oversight. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk also expressed agreement with Amodei’s concerns, with Altman saying he would delay OpenAI’s public listing until at least 2027 for safety reasons.
David Sacks, co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, responded to the tech leaders on social media, supporting responsible caution but warning against portraying the motive as purely altruistic.
"I don't see what you see in the lab. If the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you should slow down, I support your decision to be responsible. Most of all, stop pretending you need anyone else's permission to make such moves. You face massive product-liability exposure if your products enable a truly damaging cyberattack," Sacks wrote.