US President Donald Trump has dismissed fears about the safety of artificial intelligence as a "hoax," rejecting calls for stronger guardrails even as the industry's own founders and scientists warn the technology could threaten humanity.
In a series of social media posts, Trump compared AI warnings to the "Global Warming Scam" and the "RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA HOAX," and called himself "the Hoax Buster." The only "guardrails" needed, he wrote, were a "strong and smart" president.
"There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!" he added, according to BBC News, framing regulation as a geopolitical handicap.
The clash matters now because the warnings Trump dismisses are coming from inside the industry's most prominent labs — and because the debate has scrambled US politics, putting Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders on the same stage.
Anthropic extinction risk estimate above 10%
The debate intensified in recent days after a post by Jacob Coxon, a researcher who left Anthropic over concerns AI could wipe out humanity, went viral. In response, Anthropic scientist Evan Hubinger said he thought the possibility of AI causing human extinction "within the next decade" was more than 10%.
Warnings from executives and staff at leading AI firms triggered a selloff in tech shares, as investors weighed the impact of a potential slowdown in the multi-billion dollar development race, the BBC reported.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei called for the pace of development to slow and be more closely monitored, while insisting any action should come "without sacrificing commercial advantage." Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of xAI both signaled agreement with the proposal for industry-wide deceleration, regulation and independent monitoring.
Why AI kill switch mandatory calls are growing
Jack Clark, one of Anthropic's seven founders, told the BBC that a way of shutting off AI software completely if it becomes too dangerous was something society "might want to eventually pass rules around."
Clark said most labs, including Anthropic, already have ways to "pull the plug," but suggested lawmakers may need to enforce a standardized, third-party-verifiable kill switch across the industry.
Microsoft AI added to the pressure this week, publishing a document on what it called "humanist AI" that discusses limiting the models it develops. Chief executive Mustafa Suleyman told CNBC the guidance had been in the works for months and was published now because of the current debate.
Bannon and Sanders share a stage
In a sign of how the issue has reshuffled political alliances, former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon and progressive Senator Bernie Sanders were due to speak at the "Pro-Human Assembly" in Washington on Tuesday. The gathering says it aims to "define a shared vision and articulate a better, more human-centric path for AI development."
Sanders told BBC's Newsnight last week: "we have got to do something immediately to stop the uncontrolled growth of AI." He added: "You've got the existential threat of the possibility of humanity being wiped out."
China becomes the argument against regulation
Trump's claim that only Beijing benefits from AI safety rules drew pushback from Chinese state media. Xin Qiang, a professor of American Studies at Fudan University, told the Global Times that Washington's growing anxiety over China's rapid AI development "appears to be increasingly distorting its policy priorities."
"They know that China has become a strong competitor in AI, and worry that if the US slows down development or tightens regulation, China could catch up even faster," Xin said.
UK Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds urged a middle course, telling the BBC people should "never be complacent" about AI while warning against hyperbole: "Of course there are risks but, let's be frank, there are some tremendous upsides, whether it's public services, healthcare, the contribution to the economy."
What happens next turns on three open questions: whether Congress or international bodies move to mandate kill switches and monitoring or leave labs to police themselves; what emerges from Tuesday's Bannon-Sanders assembly; and whether the tech selloff deepens or reverses.