Trump Opposes AI "Guardrails": Congress Pushes Legislation to Set Limits as Partisan Divisions Deepen

Title context: Trump Opposes AI "Guardrails": Congress Pushes Legislation to Set Limits as Partisan Divisions Deepen Text: U.S. President Donald Trump opposes setting guardrails for artificial intelligence (AI), putting him at odds with a growing number of lawmakers from both parties. With the midterm elections approaching, voters' concerns about AI safety issues are intensifying their doubts about the technology. On Monday, Trump posted multiple messages in succession on social media, scoffing at efforts led by Anthropic PBC and OpenAI to push for slowing the development of frontier systems, and using exaggerated rhetoric to dismiss concerns about existential AI risks as a "hoax." Later that day, he called NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US) CEO Jensen Huang on a whim while Huang was on stage at a tech conference, putting the call on speakerphone. "Siasun Robot&Automation will not take over the world. AI will not take over the rest of the world," Trump told Huang, who was a guest at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles. "We have to do something, and we have to act prudently, but that does not mean we should shut down an industry." Overall, this was Trump's most resolute public defense to date: his opposition to artificially slowing the pace of AI technology development. AI is central to his economic agenda and an important driver behind the historic bull market in U.S. stocks. If frontier large-model development were paused or slowed, investors betting that the AI boom will drive hundreds of billions of dollars in capital expenditure would inevitably find it hard to accept. The performance of chipmaker stocks on Monday underscored the stakes Trump faces - he views the stock market as a benchmark of the success of his presidency. Chip stocks that have benefited from the surge in AI infrastructure spending fell on Monday, with NVIDIA Corporation down 3.4% and Micron Technology, Inc. (MU.US) down 5.3%. David Sacks, a venture capitalist, former Trump AI affairs official, and now co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, expressed a similar view in an interview on Monday. He said that if Anthropic and OpenAI believe their most advanced models pose serious risks, they are entirely free to slow development themselves, without new regulation to push them to do so. "I do not agree with the claim that unless the government steps in and imposes requirements on companies that are not even at the frontier, they cannot ensure product safety," Sacks said. Trump's pushback stemmed from a 3,800-word essay published last Saturday by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, in which he urged limiting the development of the most advanced systems so researchers can better understand potential threats. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk - whose companies are fierce competitors with Anthropic - quickly seconded Amodei's view, further driving a trend within Silicon Valley in support of taking measures to address AI's increasingly unpredictable risks. In Washington, Trump is becoming increasingly isolated in his refusal to strengthen regulation as lawmakers propose a series of measures aimed at addressing AI safety concerns. A bipartisan group of senators - including Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, and Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar - is drafting legislation requiring top AI developers to guard against catastrophic risks. Other proposals include a measure by Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders (who caucuses with the Democrats) calling for a ban on so-called "superintelligent AI," which prompted Amodei's latest warning. Lawmakers have also raised the idea of an "emergency kill switch" for AI in another bill. However, Congress is unlikely to act on any AI legislation in the near term. The House is scheduled to adjourn local time on Thursday and will not reconvene until after the November election. The brief post-election "lame-duck session" is expected to focus on a plan to boost the Pentagon's budget. "Given what we know about technology, we cannot put AI back in a box. But we can collectively decide how to develop it and how to use it, rather than standing by and letting AI and its consequences descend upon us," former U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement. Obama, a Democrat, now rarely intervenes in public policy debates. He said he is neither an AI accelerationist nor a doomsayer predicting human destruction. "But ultimately, voluntary standards set by a handful of tech companies are not enough," he said, urging lawmakers in Washington to "step forward with concrete proposals, laws, and regulations to address serious safety concerns, anticipate AI's impact on jobs and our children, and ensure that AI's benefits are broadly shared." At the risk of angering Trump, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson cautiously said he is open to regulation. He said on Monday that lawmakers "may" need to impose guardrails on the industry, but cautioned that producing legislation capable of winning broad support and passing would likely take "some time." "This is a very complex issue that requires a lot of work and bipartisan solutions," Johnson told reporters at the Capitol. Anxiety about existential AI risks burst into the mainstream last week after the high-profile resignation of Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon. In a resignation post shared on social media, he accused AI companies of "gambling with our lives." Dozens of other AI researchers expressed support for Coxon's post, which called for slowing a technology he said could "kill all of us before the end of this decade." These safety concerns could intensify bipartisan dissatisfaction with AI before the November election. The technology is becoming a central issue in congressional and local elections. Voters are increasingly dissatisfied with the impact of AI buildout, especially the rapid expansion of data centers across the United States, which has been blamed for driving up utility prices. In a post on Monday, Trump blamed a "sick conspiracy theory" for voters' backlash against AI data centers and growing concerns about frontier models. Despite Trump's complaints, warnings from industry figures about existential AI threats continue. Also on Monday, AI researchers at Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US) released a new set of guidelines imposing restrictions on the development of frontier models. In a 15,000-word manifesto, the team said models should not have legal rights or personhood and should not be designed to evade human control or deceive users. According to the manifesto, if completing a task requires violating AI guidelines, the system should not perform that task. Since Trump returned to the White House last year, his administration has largely taken a hands-off approach to AI. In June, Trump signed an AI cybersecurity executive order allowing companies to decide for themselves whether to let the government review their new AI models. Earlier this month, the administration persuaded G20 member countries to accept principles advocating light-touch regulation of AI and other emerging technologies. Still, Silicon Valley and Wall Street remain skeptical about how far Anthropic and OpenAI will actually go to constrain AI development, especially as both companies are preparing record-breaking initial public offerings. Both Amodei and Altman have strived to emphasize that their plans to slow development of their latest AI models will not a contraction in business growth or spending plans. "Whether calls to slow advanced model development can gain industry-wide support remains uncertain, but we believe they are more aimed at shaping an acceptable regulatory framework for leading AI labs," said Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi of UBS Group AG's Chief Investment Office. "We therefore expect AI investment to continue."