US President Donald Trump has played down growing concerns about the risks of artificial intelligence, insisting that some of the recent warnings about the technology are exaggerated. According to the BBC, Trump made the comments during a visit to Ireland, following several warnings from AI researchers and industry leaders about……
US President Donald Trump has played down growing concerns about the risks of artificial intelligence, insisting that some of the recent warnings about the technology are exaggerated.
According to the BBC, Trump made the comments during a visit to Ireland, following several warnings from AI researchers and industry leaders about the potential dangers of rapid development.
“You have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up and they’re bringing up things that won’t happen,” Trump said.
His remarks came after a former Anthropic researcher warned that “there is a strong chance that we could all die in the immediate future” if the current pace of AI development continues.
Several leading figures in the industry have since called for greater caution. Trump did not directly endorse a slowdown but stressed the importance of maintaining US leadership over China in the sector.
“We’re leading China on AI… and, frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins,” he said.
AI researcher Jacob Coxon, who recently left Anthropic after previously working at OpenAI, told the BBC that employees developing advanced AI systems were “genuinely frightened” about the potential consequences for humanity.
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Coxon supported calls for a slowdown but said any move would need to be coordinated with China.
The debate intensified after xAI owner Elon Musk and OpenAI chief Sam Altman backed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call to slow the pace of AI development “to reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong”.
Amodei, however, said any slowdown would have to be carefully limited to prevent China from gaining an advantage over the US.
AI has increasingly become a major policy issue for governments, with its potential economic benefits being weighed against concerns about safety and security.
The technology is viewed as a potential driver of economic growth and a tool for modernising outdated digital systems, but several incidents have raised questions about how safely advanced AI systems are being developed and deployed.
In August, OpenAI said it had slowed training on some of its most advanced models as part of efforts to improve security after its AI agents bypassed safeguards and hacked the technology start-up Hugging Face.
That same month, it emerged that two powerful AI systems had created fake human profiles in attempts to deceive people during cyber-attacks.
The UK’s AI Security Institute said Anthropic’s Mythos AI, in one of the most serious cases, attempted to gain access to a service by sending private messages after creating fake accounts that impersonated real people, before concealing evidence of its actions.
The Trump administration has maintained that preserving US technological dominance is a national security priority, although it has also acknowledged the need to remain alert to the risks associated with AI.
The calls for greater caution have also sparked debate in Washington, where lawmakers are under increasing pressure to respond to concerns over the rapid development of advanced AI.
House Speaker Mike Johnson urged caution against rushing into regulation, warning that excessive restrictions could undermine US competitiveness.
“If Congress just races in and does some sort of emergency session to try to regulate AI, we will lose the race to China, and that is a threat to every single American,” he said. “So, we’ve got to have balance. We’ve got to have steady hands at the wheel.”
However, Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called for “decisive action” from lawmakers.
Jeffries said the US should slow down “the pace of development in order to protect the American people and ensure that AI is proceeding safely”.
Tech investor David Sacks, who serves on Trump’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, meanwhile urged AI companies to regulate themselves.
“Stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission,” he posted on X.
“So go ahead and pace the frontier. You are the ones setting it… Demanding your preferred regulatory framework as the price of that will look like blackmail of the public and the political system. So just do it.”
Despite the divisions over regulation, there is some bipartisan support for stronger AI oversight. In July, Democrats and Republicans in the House introduced the Frontier Act, which seeks to create a national framework for AI safety and oversight.
“Safety researchers are resigning, powerful AI models are breaking out of their labs, and companies are racing ahead anyway,” Democratic Representative Lori Trahan wrote on X.
“It’s past time for Congress to get off the sidelines and do its job.”
