President Donald Trump said Monday that the Justice Department and other U.S. law enforcement agencies will curb risks related to artificial intelligence “as necessary.”
“We will be careful,” President Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Trump’s mention of the Justice Department as a backstop came after Anthropic’s AI researcher Jacob Coxon resigned and warned that the company and OpenAI were “risking lives” with the technology, once again downplaying the potential dangers of AI, which he has repeatedly called a hoax over the past two weeks.
The president has touted AI development by American companies as a competitive advantage for the United States, and he wants to keep it that way.
“Whoever beats the AI wins!” Trump wrote in his post.
“We now have the lead over China and other countries, and we intend to keep it that way!” he wrote. “We’re not going to stifle growth that’s bigger than the industrial revolution or the internet itself.”
“We will be careful. That’s why while the Department of Justice and other law enforcement agencies will crack down on things as necessary, I will only encourage AI, or SI (superintelligence)!” Trump wrote.
“We already have tremendous criminal and regulatory powers over these companies,” the president wrote in a Sept. 14 post on Truth Social.
Since Coxson’s warning, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have space x CEO Elon Musk and Google DeepMind Chairman Demis Hassabis are calling for a slowdown in AI development and additional federal oversight of the industry.
The White House has generally taken a loose approach to AI regulation, with Trump’s executive order in June setting out plans for a gradual overhaul.
The order required companies to voluntarily work with the government to evaluate “targeted frontier models” and grant the government access up to 30 days before a large-scale release.
