President Donald Trump today rejected growing calls to slow the development of advanced AI, arguing that the U.S. must maintain its lead over China.
“We’re leading China in AI. We’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins,” Trump told reporters at his golf course in Ireland, according to Reuters.
Trump acknowledged that safeguards could be imposed but dismissed some of the warnings surrounding increasingly powerful AI systems.
“We could put guardrails. We can do this and that. But I think you have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up and they’re bringing up things that won’t happen,” Trump said.
His comments come as AI executives and researchers increasingly debate whether development of frontier models is moving too quickly. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Saturday outlined a three-step framework intended to slow the pace of development and give researchers more time to manage potential risks.
The proposal received support from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk.
The debate intensified after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned last week and warned that competition among AI companies could drive development of increasingly powerful systems faster than safeguards can keep pace. Coxon previously worked at OpenAI before joining Anthropic.
The disagreement highlights a central tension in U.S. AI policy: Efforts to slow development to address potential safety risks could conflict with Washington’s goal of maintaining a technological advantage over China.
Amodei acknowledged that dilemma in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” calling competition between U.S. and Chinese AI companies the “toughest dilemma” in establishing a speed limit on AI development, according to Reuters.
“We shouldn’t kid ourselves, because the incentives to pull ahead and the military advantage that you get from that are so large that the ability to check that the other side isn’t cheating has to be ironclad,” Amodei said.
The U.S. and China are also preparing for talks focused specifically on AI safety risks. The discussions, expected in mid-September, are set to include possible cooperation on monitoring AI-directed cyberattacks, Reuters reported.