In a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform on September 19, Trump said his new unit would "cherish, help, and watch over" AI as it grows, rejecting any new regulations that could hinder innovation. He argued that AI "is the next Industrial Revolution, or Internet, but will be even larger and more impactful, possibly as much as 25% of our Country's GDP." The president also expressed his desire for the U.S. to maintain its lead over China in AI, which is expected to be discussed when he meets President Xi Jinping next week.
Trump offered no details on the initiative's implementation or timeline. According to reports, the announcement took both the White House and the tech industry by surprise. He did, however, state that his administration would use the existing criminal and civil justice system to target any "bad actors" using AI.
The president also repeated his view that concerns about AI's potential dangers are a "hoax," part of what he called a "sick conspiracy" to undermine the technology. This stance puts him directly at odds with a growing chorus of safety advocates.
Just days before the announcement, an ex-OpenAI researcher who resigned from Anthropic warned that AI companies were "gambling with human lives," stating that the builders of AI "earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade." Another Anthropic safety researcher estimated a more than 10% chance of AI causing human extinction by 2030. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei—backed by executives at OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Microsoft—published an essay urging Washington to slow AI development over fears that autonomous agents could spiral out of control.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has taken a similar position to Trump, dismissing the doomsday warnings as unfounded and saying there is a "0% chance" AI will destroy the world by 2030. "We should go as fast as we can, irrespective of anyone else," Huang said, rejecting calls for new regulations.