The President of the United States, Donald Trump, downplayed this Sunday, the 13th, the remarks by leaders of big tech companies about the need to slow the development of artificial intelligence (AI). Trump stressed that Washington cannot risk losing its edge over China in the global technology race.
Questioned about the sector’s recent warnings, Trump acknowledged that some rules may be necessary, but he avoided advocating a pause in the advance of the models. “We can place protective barriers, we can do this and that,” he said. However, there are “negative forces” raising scenarios that “will not happen.” “Who wins in AI, wins in everything,” he added.
The remarks come one day after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei defended a slowdown of the industry to allow safety measures to keep pace with the advancement of the systems. Sam Altman, of OpenAI, and Elon Musk, of SpaceXAI, publicly endorsed parts of the alert.
Trump stated that the U.S. is ahead of China in AI and that he wants to “keep it that way.” The topic is expected to be among the matters of the meeting planned for this month between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. At the White House, Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, said he expects meetings this week among officials responsible for cyber policy, science and technology to discuss the next steps.
The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, also defended “some security barriers,” but warned that losing the lead to China would pose a threat to national security. Meanwhile, the Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, advocated faster action by Congress to “slow down” the pace of development and ensure that AI advances safely.
