Trump Rejects AI Slowdown Calls, Citing National Competition with China

President Donald Trump denounced what he called a sickly conspiracy against artificial intelligence on Monday, asserting that the only safeguard the technology requires is a strong and intelligent president. Writing on Truth Social, Trump argued that the United States must maintain its lead in the AI race, stating that whoever wins the AI challenge wins everything and that China is the only entity benefiting from efforts to slow development. He specifically criticized Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, who recently proposed a deliberate slowdown in the development of advanced models to allow safety safeguards to catch up. Trump claimed his administration has already prevented AI figures, including Amodei, from taking potentially harmful actions. While center right and center outlets focused on Trump's rhetoric regarding national security and his attacks on tech leaders, a center left outlet reported that Trump admitted to using AI for many things but declined to specify how. Additionally, Vice President JD Vance suggested that AI companies requesting government regulation might be acting as a Trojan horse to influence the rules of their own industry. The debate follows a proposal by Amodei, supported by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk, to moderate the pace of AI frontier development. In response to the broader American debate, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that countries should promote AI development that is open, inclusive, and ethical, while warning that ruthless competition would disrupt global governance.