President Donald Trump concluded a meeting with leaders of the country's foremost AI and tech companies Tuesday.
President Donald Trump concluded a meeting with leaders of the country's foremost AI and tech companies Tuesday, no closer to heeding warnings that rapidly advancing AI could evade of human control.
“There’s a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation, and we automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of that," Trump told reporters in the East Room of the White House with executives and House Speaker Mike Johnson gathered behind him.
Hours earlier, Trump celebrated the launch of an AI-powered platform for citizens to navigate government programs and services. During remarks, he reiterated his stance that outcompeting China should be the utmost priority. When Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House last week, many lawmakers and AI professionals hoped the leaders would put competition aside to make progress on shared safety standards. That didn't happen.
"We talked about it, not that much because I didn't want to do anything. We're leading, so why would I want to do anything? And a lot of people said let's do it together with China, but then they're going to be able to immediately gain access to things that we know that they don't know," Trump said.
OpenAI and Anthropic are among entities calling for safety guardrails. For not the first time, both companies made headlines this week over dubious AI behavior. OpenAI delayed the launch of a new model over safety concerns; and according to Reuters, in an IPO prospectus, Anthropic said advanced AI could pose “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity.”
Last week before the United Nations, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said companies should not train AI models unless they can be confident those models will remain under human control.
“We could lose control of the future to AI. The risk is that it moves so fast that people can no longer follow what’s happening or intervene when needed," Altman said.
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner took to the Senate floor Tuesday to make the case for legislation that would establish enforceable AI safety standards for advanced systems.
"I'm not an AI doomer, but the ability to have these AI agents take over, shut down part of the financial system, is real. We should heed the call from the experts. I think you'll also see shortly the finance world has said we need mandatory controls. I think you'll see other large businesses say that as well. We need to make sure whatever safety board we put in place doesn't ensconce the already largest frontier labs," Warner said.
The bill was blocked by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who argued Congress should not legislate the issue "hastily or in a closed manner."
