U.S. President Donald Trump said he will create an "AI force" and appoint an AI czar to fill the vacant advisory post, reaffirming his push to accelerate artificial intelligence development with minimal regulation.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social on the 19th, Trump said the government will not "impede or hold back" the growth of AI "in any way," while adding that it will use the existing criminal and civil justice systems to identify bad actors. The remarks were read as an attempt to press for faster development amid technology competition with China while acknowledging the risks of AI and negative public sentiment.
Evan Hubinger, a researcher at Anthropic, said he now estimates a greater than 10% chance that AI will kill all of humanity within the next decade. Trump dismissed such warnings from technologists that AI could destroy humanity as a hoax, saying the only safeguard the technology needs is a strong and smart president.
"I will create an AI force, just like the Space Force, which was a tremendous success during my first term," he said, adding that he will name an AI czar before long. The Space Force was established in 2019 during his first term. He said AI would become "the next industrial revolution" or something akin to the internet, but far larger and more influential, adding that it could account for 25% of U.S. gross domestic product. On U.S. progress in AI, he said the country is ahead of China and the rest of the world and intends to stay there.
Trump's anti-regulation stance has hardened over the past month even as warnings from the industry have mounted. Anthropic Chief Executive Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Nobel laureate Demis Hassabis, a co-founder and board chairman of Google DeepMind, have all called for slowing development as their systems grow more powerful.
The AI czar post would revive a role the White House had no plans to fill as recently as six months ago. David Sacks, a co-founder of Craft Ventures, stepped down from the official AI and crypto czar position in March but retains influence as co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
