By Katharine Jackson and Courtney Rozen
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Monday that the U.S. already has guardrails in place to regulate and prosecute AI companies, appearing to play down concerns expressed by industry leaders over the weekend about misuse of artificial intelligence.
“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that China would benefit from the doubt being cast on artificial intelligence development.
“We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China.”
Alarm about the potential harm from AI grew last week when Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon said he had resigned, and that the “people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
AI-related stocks fell sharply worldwide on Monday after leaders of some of the industry’s largest companies called for slowing the pace of the technology’s development.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote in an essay published on Saturday that the U.S. government should write regulations requiring independent audits of the most advanced AI tools, known as “frontier” models.
He outlined a three-step framework intended to slow the pace of AI development and create more time to manage its risks. The proposal was immediately endorsed by several other executives at major AI companies, including Elon Musk, who runs xAI, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Monday he is skeptical of the AI executives calling on the U.S. government to regulate the sector.
“I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them,” Vance said.
U.S. Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat and a leader on technology legislation, spoke with Amodei and Altman about AI safety concerns over the weekend, his spokesperson said.
Trump said the tools intended to keep AI safe had already been used on Amodei.
“The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’ — and we will continue to do so,” Trump wrote on social media.
Anthropic’s media team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters about Trump’s statement.
The Republican president has resisted stirring concerns about artificial intelligence and has largely embraced AI companies in his second term.
Trump is scheduled to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week in Washington. Reuters previously reported that the two countries were planning a separate meeting in mid-September to discuss the risks of AI, led by lower-level government officials.
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya, Katharine Jackson; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Bill Berkrot and Nia Williams)
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