Trump brushes off the AI slowdown call: 'negative forces' are raising things that won't happen
A day after Dario Amodei asked the industry to slow the pace of capability gains, with Sam Altman and Elon Musk backing him, Donald Trump told reporters at his Doonbeg resort in Ireland that the United States leads China in AI, that guardrails are possible and that the people raising the alarm are 'bringing up things that won't happen'. He accepted that some regulation is needed but named no measure. David Sacks, co-chair of the presidential science advisory council, added that the companies can slow down on their own.
Artificial Intelligence··Morning
'Whoever wins AI, wins' at Doonbeg
Donald Trump spoke to reporters on Sunday 13 September after watching the Irish Open golf tournament at his Doonbeg resort in the west of Ireland. A day earlier Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, had asked the industry in an essay to slow how fast AI capabilities improve, and Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, and Elon Musk, who owns xAI, had backed the call in posts on X. Trump told the reporters that the United States leads China in AI and that he wants to keep it that way, adding that 'whoever wins AI, wins'. Guardrails can be put in place, he said, but the people raising the alarm are 'negative forces' bringing up things that won't happen; he did not say whom he meant. He accepted that some regulation is needed and named no measure.[1], [2]
Sacks: the industry can slow itself down if it wishes
David Sacks, the former White House AI czar who now co-chairs the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, also pushed back against the executives' warnings. The industry sets its own pace, he wrote, can slow down on its own if it wishes, and demanding a preferred regulatory framework as the price of doing so would look like blackmail of the public. Replying to Altman and Amodei on X with 'go ahead', he said he does not see what they see in the lab and that if the unreleased models are scary enough to justify slowing down, he supports their decision to be responsible. He told them, though, to stop pretending they need anyone else's permission and to stop pretending the motivation is purely altruistic, pointing to the massive product-liability exposure they face if their products enable a truly damaging cyberattack.[1], [2]
Behind the warnings: Coxon's resignation and the line Johnson drew the same day
Behind the wave of warnings is the 8 September resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who said the industry is racing toward self-improving superintelligence. On the same Sunday that Trump spoke, House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected a moratorium on CNN's State of the Union, arguing that an emergency session to regulate AI would lose the race to China, and said he wants the tech companies to take the lead in creating safer AI.[1], [2]
