WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance expressed skepticism Monday about tech leaders requesting the government to step in and regulate the artificial intelligence industry, calling it “a bit of a Trojan horse.”
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis and Elon Musk have called for greater government oversight of AI and for the development of the new technology to happen slower.
“I have to say, just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them. It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a trojan horse,” Vance told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before departing for events in the Kansas City area.
President Trump appeared to agree, saying Monday he would serve as a sufficient enough guardrail against any AI that goes rogue.
“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!,” he wrote on Truth Social.
The president has repeatedly framed the AI issue as a global race to be the leader in the field, claiming there was a “sick conspiracy” against technological advances and data centers, possibly influenced by China.
“We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! 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! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!,” he said.
Concerns about AI have grown after Anthropic researchers warned the emerging technology could kill all of humanity by 2030.
But it’s unclear what form regulation would take and how soon it could be done. Congress moves at a notoriously slow pace. The House will only be in session this week, with the Senate one more after that. Lawmakers then plan to hit the campaign trail until November’s election.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told CNN on Sunday that Congress has already instituted AI guardrails and that “there is an obvious corporate responsibility that the people who are creating these models have to ensure that their products are safe.”
He echoed Trump’s argument that the US is in a technology race and should not be slowed down by over-regulation.
“We cannot put a moratorium on this because China will overlap us, and that’s the challenge,” Johnson said. “It’s national security balanced with the immediate security of making sure the models are safe.”
Democrats, however, are beating the drum to put safeguards in place.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has called for an all-senators classified briefing from the administration on how it plans to deal with rapidly evolving technology.
Former President Obama, at a closed-door Democratic fundraiser in New York last week, urged Democrats to make AI and data centers a major issue in the election, the New York Times reported.
“This is something that is moving very fast in private hands, and if we don’t get on top of it, I think can be dangerous,” he said.
The twice-elected Democratic president urged the party to “have a very clear plan” for responding to safety and economic concerns around the technology.
