President Donald Trump has responded in characteristic fashion to recent debates over the safety of AI, declaring that these concerns are part of a series of disinformation “created by radical left-wing Democrats with the purpose of destroying our country.”
On Saturday, President Trump began musing about AI by writing on his social network Truth Social, “Many people think the term ‘artificial intelligence’ is imprecise and far less eloquent than AI or artificial intelligence.” So he posted a poll where his followers could vote on a new name for the technology: “Superior Intelligence,” “Extreme Intelligence,” or “Supreme Intelligence.” (Survey is still ongoing at the time of publishing this article)
Hours later, President Trump went on to post claiming that the attempt to “disrupt or destroy AI” was one of “many” Democratic hoaxes along with “Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Global Warming, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, Men in Women’s Sports, (and) Transgender Everyone.”
President Trump then claimed that he was “not going to let this sit by”, adding that this so-called hoax “started with attacks on data centers and continued until people realized how wealthy and prestigious data centers are to the communities in which they are built.” But after he said “the crazy data center attack almost failed,” critics began “blaming AI squarely.”
President Trump provided no evidence to support his claim that widespread suspicions about AI and data centers are not organic and sincere. (Both Republicans and Democrats have set their sights on data centers, and New York recently became the first state to suspend permitting for large projects.)
The president’s post also echoed his comments at a golf tournament last weekend in which he said he was open to “guardrails,” but also maintained, “I think there are a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be brought up.”
On Saturday, Trump went on to say he would “take care of[the AI industry]help it grow, and watch it grow,” but he is also creating an AI military similar to the Space Force he created during his first term.
“That’s why we will be announcing an AI ‘Emperor’ in the near future. Only people with high IQ need to apply!” he added.
The president did not say what the mission of the AI army and the AI emperor would be. Venture capitalist Dived Sachs resigned as the Trump administration’s AI and crypto czar earlier this year to become co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
The debate over the safety of AI has recently intensified after an AI researcher announced he was leaving Anthropic, citing concerns that the leading AI company “seriously believes it could kill us all by the end of the decade” and is “putting our lives on the line.” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei then announced plans to “set the pace on the frontier,” which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk appear to have endorsed. Critics of the AI industry suggest that many of these alleged existential concerns about the technology distract from AI’s more immediate harms.
Meanwhile, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called President Trump on stage during the All-In Summit (co-hosted by Sachs) and agreed with the president that the AI backlash was a “hoax” and insisted that the company is “not going to let” an economic slowdown happen.
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