Donald Trump praises tech bosses’ ‘self-regulation’ of AI

{"text":[[{"start":6.96,"text":"Donald Trump has dismissed calls for stricter AI regulation after summoning tech bosses to the White House in a show of dominance over executives such as Anthropic’s Dario Amodei in the wake of several hacking incidents."}],[{"start":20.16,"text":"Following a lunch in the East Room with Big Tech billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and others, the US president shut down talk of new laws to govern the sector, instead endorsing “tremendous self-regulation”."}],[{"start":33.92,"text":"Trump paraded the chief executives of the world’s biggest companies in front of the cameras on the White House driveway, saying their companies had agreed to a “morally binding” accord to voluntarily manage the tech’s risks."}],[{"start":46.08,"text":"The president also toyed with Silicon Valley’s elites, jokingly calling Google’s Sundar Pichai a “monster” who “nobody knows”. Tech executives began referring to AI as “super intelligence” after Trump said he would sign an executive order rebranding the technology."}],[{"start":61.96,"text":"The White House spectacle displayed Trump’s supremacy over the billionaires who have rushed to woo him since he won the presidency."}],[{"start":68.72,"text":"He again sided emphatically with those against additional regulation and sceptical of AI alarmism, such as Zuckerberg and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, brushing off pleas from Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman for more oversight."}],[{"start":83.28,"text":"But the intervention from Trump, who has consistently opposed an AI rule book, leaves him at odds with the majority of Americans and many in his own Republican Party ahead of the midterm congressional elections in November."}],[{"start":94.96,"text":"It also underlines Trump’s opposition to calls from other global leaders for an international agreement on AI governance, which he dismissed at the UN as a “globalist scheme”."}],[{"start":104.88,"text":"The president’s former AI tsar David Sacks, still a close adviser, hailed the voluntary accord on Tuesday, writing: “This is far better than waiting years for some international agreement that would probably never happen.” Trump also hinted he would appoint a new AI tsar in the coming days."}],[{"start":120.84,"text":"The White House later posted a two-page document signed by the leaders of Anthropic, OpenAI, Nvidia, Meta, xAI and Google, entitled “Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities”."}],[{"start":133.4,"text":"Under the agreement, the companies pledged “robust internal processes and controls to ensure that their technology behaves as intended and that any issues are promptly identified and resolved”."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":144.28,"text":"The accord also commits companies to appoint an external auditor to assess whether these controls are working as intended. Musk said the agreement meant AI groups would be “generally grading each other’s homework”."}],[{"start":155.76,"text":"“Over time, it may make sense to codify these steps into laws or regulations,” the document concludes."}],[{"start":162.2,"text":"The agreement comes after Amodei was joined by rivals Musk and Altman in calling for an industry-wide agreement to slow down the development of advanced AI models amid growing safety concerns."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":173.24,"text":"Anthropic, OpenAI and Google have also called for laws or new bodies that would mandate independent safety assessments and strengthen cyber security protections. Some AI companies have also been pushing for an exemption to antitrust laws so that they can collaborate with competitors on safety issues."}],[{"start":190.6,"text":"But Trump has sided with Sacks and Nvidia’s Huang in defying calls for stricter regulation of the industry that he has called a “golden goose” for the US economy."}],[{"start":199.68,"text":"During Tuesday’s impromptu press conference — flanked by Amodei, Zuckerberg and Huang, among others — Trump insisted that existing laws were adequate to deal with recent events."}],[{"start":209.76,"text":"“A bad actor is going to get caught, and that’s why we have the [Department of Justice], that’s why we have the FBI, that’s why we have the CIA,” he said."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":218.12,"text":"Trump called on tech leaders — including OpenAI co-founder and Maga donor Greg Brockman — in turn, coaxing them to talk up the accord."}],[{"start":225.92,"text":"He boasted that no other president could have assembled such a lunch and that America was leading the AI revolution, highlighting the lack of competition in Europe."}],[{"start":234.24,"text":"But the most striking display of Trump’s strength was in his interaction with Amodei. The president had previously derided him as one of the “leftwing nut jobs” running Anthropic and designated his company a national security risk after it refused to allow unrestricted use of its technology in warfare."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":250.28,"text":"Trump warned Amodei, who dined with Trump on Sunday night, to be “careful” before he spoke to the assembled press."}],[{"start":258.04,"text":"The Anthropic chief went on to say he agreed with the president that “whoever wins AI, wins”, but said he thought AI “has very real risks and the mechanism for how we address those risks is still under discussion”."}],[{"start":271.66,"text":"The lunch at the White House also included top executives from Microsoft, AMD and Palantir."}],[{"start":277.44,"text":"Additional reporting by Alex Rogers in Washington, Michael Acton and Stephen Morris in San Francisco"}],[{"start":286.28,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1790728533_4056.mp3"}