Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
US President Donald Trump has played down calls for tighter checks on the development of artificial intelligence, saying he is more concerned about the United States losing its lead over China in the global race for the technology. Speaking during a weekend trip to Ireland, Trump said winning the AI race would be crucial even as concerns grow over how quickly the technology is advancing.
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While he acknowledged that some regulation may be needed, Trump did not spell out what rules he supports. His remarks came a day after Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei said the industry should slow down its rapid development so that safety measures can catch up, a view that has also been backed publicly by Elon Musk and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.
Trump said warnings that AI is moving too fast and with too little oversight are being pushed by unnamed “negative forces”. “We can put guardrails, we can do this and that, but I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that … shouldn’t be bringing it up, and they’re bringing up things that won’t happen,” he told reporters. He added: “But whoever wins with AI wins.” Later, after watching a golfer tee off at the Irish Open at his resort in Doonbeg, Trump said the US is ahead of China in AI development and, “frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping is due at the White House later in September for talks with Trump, and AI is likely to be among the issues discussed. In the US, AI has become a major election-year issue as large companies expand networks of computing warehouses in small towns, prompting concerns across party lines over shrinking farmland, pressure on water supplies and rising electricity bills. Trump has continued to back data centres even as Republicans and Democrats have distanced themselves from them and many communities have tried to block them.
Former President Barack Obama said Democrats should make AI a campaign issue. “I would talk about this, and I would say, here’s our plan for safety, here’s our plan for making sure our kids are not corrupted by this. … I would be thinking about the economic impacts in very concrete ways and understanding what does it mean if there’s going to be job displacement. Where is that going to hit? How are we going to respond?” he said at an event last week with House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, according to a transcript released by his office.
At the White House, National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett said he expects meetings this week involving officials handling cyber, science and technology policy to discuss next steps. He also said Trump could meet members of Congress who have raised concerns over the pace of AI development. “I think the president wants to hear from them as well,” Hassett said. House Speaker Mike Johnson said there is a need for “some guardrails, some safety measures” so AI “doesn’t run away”. But, like Trump, he said the US must not “lose our edge in the global competition on this with China because that would be a national security threat.” Jeffries criticised Republican leaders for sending members back to their districts for the final part of September and said: “We should take decisive action now so that we can slow down, as the CEOs have recently acknowledged, the pace of development in order to protect the American people and ensure that AI is proceeding safely.”
Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic employee who resigned over AI concerns and has spoken publicly about them, called for international rules as well as self-regulation by the industry. He said he fears AI models could soon develop capabilities beyond human control. “You’re building a human-level or superhuman-level mind, without understanding what it wants, or thinks, or the way it thinks,” Coxon said. He also urged cooperation between Washington and Beijing to slow development and address safety risks. “I do hope that the people in China who are looking at the same problems as we are, so they’re trying to build the same technology, will come to the same conclusion that it has to be done in a measured manner, and it should be easy to cooperate on some sort of mutual — of mutual slowing,” he said. Otherwise, Coxon warned, “we risk running the same race with China, which could be equally dangerous.”
Trump’s remarks in Ireland underline the split in the US debate over AI, with the White House, Congress, former leaders and industry figures weighing the need for safety measures against concerns that slowing development could hand an advantage to China.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
