Trump dismisses AI safety concerns as a ‘hoax’ as tech leaders warn of the need for stronger safeguards.

Trump dismisses AI safety concerns as a ‘hoax’ while tech leaders warn of the need for stronger safeguards.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has played down rising fears about the threats posed by artificial intelligence, calling fears that AI could be a threat to humanity a “hoax” while tech leaders and researchers call for stronger safeguards.

Trump’s comments come as the tech industry is facing renewed debate about how quickly increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems should be developed and what controls should be in place if they become difficult to monitor or contain.

Trump on Monday rejected calls for more AI “guardrails” in social media posts, arguing the technology needs a strong president instead of broader regulation.

He added that concerns about AI are part of what he called a “SICK conspiracy” against AI and data centers, and that the United States must maintain its lead over China in this technology.

Trump compared the warnings to previous political controversies and declared himself the “Hoax Buster.” He had no detailed proposals for an alternative AI safety framework.

The president’s stance is a sharp contrast to recent warnings from some of the industry’s biggest names.

Jack Clark, co-founder of AI company Anthropic, said a mechanism that could fully shut down a dangerous AI system may eventually need to be made a requirement industry-wide. Most major AI labs already have ways to turn off their systems, Clark said, but lawmakers may eventually require independent verification of such safeguards.

The debate has grown hotter after a string of warnings by researchers and executives about the possible dangers of increasingly powerful A.I. systems.

Anthropic researcher Evan Hubinger recently said that he personally estimated AI could cause human extinction within the next decade with a probability of more than 10%. His assessment is a personal estimate, not a scientific consensus, and is about hypothetical future systems, not evidence that current artificial intelligence systems are capable of causing human extinction.

AI company Anthropic’s chief executive Dario Amodei has also called for a slowdown in the pace of AI development and more oversight of the most advanced systems. Other advocates of more coordination and safety measures include OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Elon Musk.

The debate is also affecting the companies developing the technology.

On Monday, Microsoft AI released a draft “Humanist AI” code of conduct, a set of principles meant to keep advanced artificial intelligence systems under human control. The company said the document was being released for public consultation.

Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft’s chief on AI, said the company believes advanced AI should be both containable and controllable. The proposed framework restricts activities in areas like weapons development and other uses that might be damaging.

The debate has also been renewed across the US political divide.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders will speak at a “Pro-Human Assembly” in Washington, where organizers say attendees will discuss a more human-centric approach to AI development.

Separately, Sanders warned that the rapid growth of AI requires immediate action, including concerns over the potential for catastrophic consequences.

The argument comes after a series of public warnings from researchers inside and outside the leading AI companies. Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic, recently left to voice concerns about the race to build increasingly autonomous and powerful systems. Hubinger’s warning of possible long-term consequences followed his comments.

And yet the tech world remains divided over how the governments should respond.

Supporters of tougher safeguards say frontier artificial intelligence systems may eventually pose risks that corporate controls today can’t adequately address. Trump and other critics of tougher regulation say a slowdown in US development could erode the country’s technological position relative to China.

That tension is the central question increasingly in the debate on A.I.: how to reduce potentially serious risks without unnecessarily slowing a technology that governments and companies see as strategically and economically important.

There is, for the moment, no consensus among governments, scientists, or technology companies about the magnitude of long-term risks or the regulatory regime that should be applied to the most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems.