Vice President JD Vance told The Post that he would oppose any “cartel-like” activity by artificial intelligence companies that could shield them from antitrust laws, adding that he’s also highly concerned about the technology’s new threats to Americans’ privacy.
Vance went so far as to say that “the sort of constant slow incursion on privacy” was also “a much bigger concern than the robots are going to take over and start killing people.”
“There’s a universe where we do this in the right way; there’s a universe where we do this in the wrong way,” he said in an exclusive interview on Air Force Two Monday, discussing anxieties about the future of AI.
“And I’m just extremely skeptical of companies coming to the federal government and saying regulate us,” he added. “The devil’s really in the details there.”
Neither President Trump nor other White House officials have expressed a desire to regulate top AI firms like Anthropic and OpenAI after one of their ex-staffers warned last week the tech posed a greater than 10% risk of wiping out humanity by 2030 — and needed to be reined in “as soon as possible.”
“The question is, regulate you in what way? In a way that shields you from antitrust laws? Because that sounds really terrible,” Vance responded Monday. “In a way that, you know, sort of, creates cartel-like activity? That doesn’t sound like a great idea to me.”
“We’re certainly willing to in the future … work collaboratively with companies to minimize the risks here,” he added.
In addition to Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google DeepMind head Demis Hassabis and Elon Musk called for greater government oversight of AI.
The vice president also rejected concerns about artificial general intelligence, or AGI, being able to “destroy human life,” in a way depicted by the “Terminator” franchise through the fictional company Skynet.
“I don’t see evidence of that,” Vance said, adding that he also doesn’t believe “the robots are going to replace all human jobs.”
But he did express concerns about two likely eventualities from the progress of AI: greater economic inequality and “the acceleration of surveillance technology.”
“The last couple of technological revolutions of human history have massively distributed resources up. And so, if you go back to the Industrial Revolution, why did you see the rise of fascism and communism in Europe? I think a very strong argument is because you had a massive increase in wealth disparity,” Vance continued.
The vice president also said: “The story of technology and digital technology in the past 20 years is, I think, a story of really amazing tools that improve human lives combined with a massive invasion of privacy.”
Both are concerns he harbors about the life-changing tech based on his Catholic faith.
“All technology should serve human beings as opposed to the other way around, and the purpose of technological development is to make human lives better,” Vance said, noting breakthroughs in health care and other sectors.
But he added, “I really, really worry about the acceleration of surveillance technology, and I think that’s something we have to be very careful of.”
Vance, too, worries his phone is listening to him.
“I mean, even just simple things, you don’t even [have to] get into the AI stuff, but like, you know, if you linger over a paragraph in your web browser or the s–t that you’re saying, you’re talking to your family like, you know, is your cell phone picking that up and using it to sell you digital advertising,” he went on.
“There are so many ways in which these technological tools have invaded human privacy,” he also said, “and I do think that we have to have a more straightforward conversation about how to balance those privacy concerns.”
