WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump plans “a very big meeting” Sept. 29 with the head of an artificial intelligence company, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei; House Speaker Mike Johnson and others amid concerns that the technology could be dangerous if developed too quickly.
Trump told Fox News on Sept. 27 that he remains confident in the technology and its potential. Trump seeks to have America stay ahead in its development of the technology in comparison to China.
But Amodei and other industry leaders have voiced concerns about the technology growing faster than it can be controlled.
"I don't worry about it," Trump told Fox News’ Aishah Hasnie.
"We're about maybe a year and a half up on China," Trump added. "We're leading, and we're building tremendous,
trillions of dollars' worth of places. And why should we give that up?"
The industry meeting – and a dinner Trump said he was having with Amodei on Sept. 27 – come amid growing concerns about the technology.
OpenAI said in July that an autonomous AI agent went rogue during a security test and hacked into another company. Companies including OpenAI, Google’s DeepMind and Microsoft’s xAI have called for slowing development.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sept. 27 that his concern about the technology would lead to greater regulation.
“You know, we have created an intelligent species that, in many respects, is already smarter than we are, and over the next several years at kind of exponentially improving level will be insanely smarter than we are,” Gates said. “I can’t say strongly enough how much society, not just the companies, but every academic think tank, voter, policymaker, need to really engage on how we want to shape this technology.”
Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned that AI could kill off people by the end of the decade. But Trump has called such warnings a “hoax.” But Gates rejected that argument and said the technology “is certainly powerful enough to drive events that can cause a billion deaths.”
Amodei spoke last week before the United Nations Security Council about the need for international standards and cooperation to manage the risks of the technology.
"We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain," Amodei wrote this month in an essay.
But Trump told the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 22 that he wouldn’t restrict the development of the technology, which he called Super Intelligence because he thought Artificial Intelligence made it sound fake.
“I'm not going to stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the industrial revolution,” Trump said. “We're going to encourage it, not rein it in.”
The Pentagon, which uses artificial intelligence in its warfare, stopped using Anthropic and called the company a threat to the supply chain to defend the country. A federal appeals court upheld the designation Sept. 25.
Trump told Fox News he talked to China’s President Xi Jinping about the technology “a little bit” during their meeting last week. Amodei and other tech leaders attended the state dinner with Xi on Sept. 24.
Trump said he will discuss the need to stay ahead of China at the meeting Sept. 29 with Amodei and others.
"We have a very big meeting on Tuesday where everybody's coming in and that'll be very important," Trump said.
"We're going to talk about it. I'm for let's go and let's win,” Trump added. “Because I think if you, as they say, open it up to China, you give up the lead.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump to meet with AI, government leaders amid concerns about technology
