dlvr.it
Facebook
Lawmakers had mixed reactions to President Donald Trump Monday after he opposed placing guardrails on artificial intelligence (AI), with some agreeing that the U.S. is at major risk because of China.
Trump said that top tech leaders’ warnings about AI development needing to slow down was a “sick conspiracy” against AI and data centers, arguing the only guardrails needed are a “strong and smart president.” Many lawmakers told the Daily Caller News Foundation they supported guardrails, while others agreed with Trump.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told the DCNF and others Monday that he supports placing guardrails on AI, indicating a clear break from Trump.
Most relevant
Alex Landi
The problem (and what Trump and others are worried about)- if the authoritarian Chinese government puts no "guardrails" on AI development, we get left in the dust. Then what? Are we at a great disadvantage? That's the issue. If we proceed full speed ahead, does AI become a real threat? Tough call.
View all 2 replies
Top fan
PhanhTomm WZ
Looks like he’s about to drop
Alex Ramirez
I agree with Trump here. This is exactly where political economy matters. When the companies already leading the AI race begin advocating that everyone slow the race down, skepticism is warranted.
Their safety concerns may be completely sincere. But sincerity and self-interest are not mutually exclusive.
If government responds by creating expensive licensing, testing and compliance regimes, the companies best positioned to survive are the enormous incumbents already at the frontier. Today's safety regulation can become tomorrow's competitive moat.
That is the regulatory-capture risk.
And there's a geopolitical problem: America can regulate American AI companies. It cannot unilaterally regulate the global development of intelligence. Slowing ourselves doesn't necessarily slow China or decentralized development elsewhere.
So the intelligent question isn't simply, “Should AI slow down?”
It's: Who determines the speed limit, who writes the rules, who can afford to comply with them, and who benefits once they're enforced?
Safety without competition risks cartelization. Competition without safety risks recklessness. We need to prevent both.
View all 3 replies
Office of Public Opinion
I support guardrails on highways. Not sure where AI is driving.
Scuba Bell
And if he had said yes, the liberals would be up in arms. He said no, now they want guardrails! Lmao
Rick Martinez
Guardrails are for public use. Our government must have better AI vontrols and equipment than our enemies. We must know the maximum capabilities of AI and have adequate detection and defenses to protect our country and our people.
Hope Reiff
Watters: AI CEOs Want Washington to Slow Them Down Right Before Payday
Jesse Watters said the sudden plea from AI chiefs for government regulation does not add up. “When the smartest people in the world are begging the dumbest people in the world to help them out, something doesn’t add up,” he said. “We created the most powerful product in world history, more powerful than a nuclear weapon, it’s going to possibly kill us all in three years. Only Schumer can save us.”
His argument is that the companies want Democrats to write the rules because those rules will freeze out cheaper, faster competitors. “They know the Democrats will let them write whatever regulations they want,” Watters said. “And it’ll freeze out their competitors who are doing a lot of cheap AI really fast. And then all the politicians will get credit for saving mankind. Plus the people that write the regulations get all the donations.”
He compared the pitch to earlier panic campaigns. “If I told you the world was going to end if you didn’t take this vax, what would you do? Or if the world was going to end because of global warming, what would you do? Same thing’s happening here. Some people get rich and we all still survive.” He added that the firms are aligning with Democrats because “they know which way the wind is blowing” and because that alliance previously produced social-media bans and conservative censorship. “This is just going to be much worse.”
The timing, he said, is the tell. Anthropic and OpenAI are heading toward public offerings, which means their books will be public. “Their books, you’re going to see they’re burning cash fast. So fast they need to slow things down. So they want to lock this thing in and make the government interfere in the market in their favor.” If the product is so dangerous it could hurt people or tank the economy, he asked, why can’t the companies simply stop or slow it themselves?
Watters said the model looks like vaccine-maker liability protection and bank bailouts. “If I have a product that’s going to hurt a lot of people, I don’t want to get sued. They know they’re about to get sued. They probably also know they could crash the market. And so they want to be treated like a big bank, too big to fail, so the government can bail them out.”
He dismissed the moral theater around the moment. “Something doesn’t smell right because this is on the eve of the biggest IPO in world history and you have this suspicious whistleblower. They’re aligned with Barack Hussein Obama and the CEOs are all white knighting themselves like, oh, I have more virtue than Jesus Christ himself.” His line: “I’m not going to get scared into taking quick action because some computer scientist is having a nervous breakdown a month before payday. Not happening.”
On regulation itself, he left the door cracked but not open. “Perhaps we might need to regulate AI in the future after we’ve seen what it can do on a wider scale, but now, no. You don’t bankrupt an industry in its infancy, especially when we’re in an arms race with the Chinese. I want to win the arms race, not China.”