Trump and Speaker Johnson Push Back on AI Industry Calls to Slow Development
A proposal to slow down artificial intelligence development is drawing sharp resistance from Republican leaders. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publishes an open letter arguing it is time to "pace the frontier," and the call wins support from OpenAI's Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and tentative backing from Alphabet's Demis Hassabis. But Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson dismiss the industry's concerns as an overreaction.
The Republican leaders frame the debate around competition with China. Speaking to the Financial Times, Trump says the US is leading China in AI and that he wants to keep it that way, declaring that "whoever wins AI, wins." Johnson echoes the sentiment on CNN, telling Jake Tapper that rushing to impose restrictions on AI development could itself become a national security threat.
Johnson urges calm over quick regulatory action, warning that a panicked congressional response would backfire. He says that if Congress races into an emergency session to regulate AI, the US will lose the race to China. The disagreement highlights a growing divide between AI executives calling for caution and political leaders prioritizing speed and global dominance.