On Tuesday, US president Donald Trump hosted a discussion with some of the richest and most powerful tech billionaires who’ve pushed the AI buildout, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, and SpaceX’s Elon Musk.
His post-meeting press scrum was cut short, however, when a reporter challenged Trump on his recent comments that any AI safety threat is a flat out “hoax.”
“Mr President you’ve also called AI a ‘hoax,’ why should…” an unknown reporter hollered as Trump fielded questions.
The event was already winding down, but it clearly wasn’t a question Trump wanted to deal with. White House staffers immediately ran over to begin corralling the media out of the room, prompting one woman to quickly — it’s unclear if she was with the media or the administration — grab the camera supplying the feed used by Fox News.
It’s not clear if Trump understood just how awkward the question was.
Over the past year, after previously expressing concern about the dangers of AI, the president has emerged as the final boss of opponents to AI regulation — even as many of the executives he was sharing the stage with, including such diametrically different figures as Amodei and Musk, call for a slowdown as they say the tech is getting too dangerous. (As icing on the cake, Trump has also thrown his support behind data centers, which are extremely unpopular with both Democrats and Republicans.)
In a more sane world, a thoughtful elected official might seize on a question like the one presented to Trump to explore the nuances of a pressing issue that has many voters deeply concerned.
But in Trump’s White House, it was clearly time to cut and run.
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