Trump Dismisses AI Safety Warnings, Says 'Whoever Wins AI, Wins'
President Donald Trump brushed aside AI safety concerns in Ireland, saying negative forces are raising issues that won't happen, as industry leaders urge caution.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday played down fears about the accelerating pace of artificial intelligence development, telling reporters that warnings from critics amount to "things that won't happen."
Speaking at the close of the Irish Open at his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, Trump was asked whether the AI industry should slow down or face tighter regulation. He responded by framing the technology as a strategic contest, saying the United States is ahead of China and should stay there.
"Whoever wins AI, wins," he said, adding that while guardrails are possible, "a lot of negative forces" are raising concerns that should not be raised. He did not specify who those forces were.
His comments came a day after Dario Amodei, chief executive of AI developer Anthropic, said the industry should slow its rapid development so that safety measures can keep pace. Without such a pause, Amodei warned, AI could within six to twelve months be capable of directing a swarm of agents able to take over the entire internet.
Anxiety about the technology has been building both inside and outside the sector, with reports of increasingly capable systems that can solve problems beyond human capacity while also carrying the risk of going rogue. The chief executive of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, told Fortune that it would hold off selling stock to investors on Wall Street until next year as it concentrates on safety.
Watchdogs have for years pressed the industry to slow down for safety reasons, and pressure has intensified as workers have resigned and accused their employers of failing to act responsibly. Earlier in the week, UN human rights chief Volker Türk called on countries to put "cast-iron guarantees in place around the safety and security of AI before it is too late."
Trump, speaking on the final day of the tournament, also pointed to broader manufacturing activity in the United States, saying more auto factories are under construction now than at any time in many decades.