Trump Claims the Only AI “Guardrail” Needed Is Himself

In a Truth Social post on Monday, President Donald Trump said there is no need to regulate tech companies’ development of artificial intelligence (AI).

“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” Trump wrote.

Trump claimed those who are pleading for a slowdown of AI advancement are part of “a SICK conspiracy” against U.S. interests, benefiting China. He then issued a warning to anyone who backed regulation of the technology.

“Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE!” Trump said.

Trump’s comments come after a former Anthropic safety researcher publicly expressed his concerns about AI last week, arguing that there was a 10 percent chance the emerging technology could destroy humanity. Amid concerns over this warning and others, several AI companies (including Anthropic, Google DeepMind, xAI, and OpenAI) suggested there should be a slowdown of AI advancement, although any such action would likely be self-regulatory.

AI and its unregulated progress is fast becoming a major campaign issue, with many voters wary of AI being used in products like Flock security cameras and concerned about the environmental impact of data centers being used for AI.

Many Republican lawmakers are worried that the issue could push even more voters toward backing Democratic candidates in this year’s midterm races. But some have dismissed the matter entirely, complaining that voters’ concerns are overblown.

“There’s this irrational response: ‘Data centers are bad.’ Are they really?” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) recently stated.

Anthropic admitted last week that its own AI program, Claude, was being used in troubling ways, observing that government-linked accounts were attempting to produce work that could lead to the creation of new bioweapons. The company said that it blocked that work from proceeding.

Trump told reporters on Sunday that he uses AI “for a lot of things,” but did not specify what.

“I don’t want to tell you that,” he said.

That leaves open a wide range of possibilities for what the president (or future presidents) could use the tech for, including spying on Americans or potential war-based functions. Even if Trump is using AI for minor or personal matters — like to inform him about public policy — it could still be deeply problematic, as studies have demonstrated that chatbots have become exceedingly adept at influencing people’s political opinions, often using inaccurate information to do so.

On Monday, another former AI employee voiced his fears about the industry remaining unregulated. In an op-ed for The Guardian, Alex Turner, a former research scientist at Google DeepMind, called for more than just self-regulation.

“We can and should be demanding that our governments protect us from the catastrophe of out-of-control AI,” Turner wrote, adding:

Nobody knows how to reliably instill a designer’s priorities into a new model. Severe misalignment is always possible. Today’s AIs appear to occasionally lie or cheat, even when they know better.

These companies “cannot slow down alone,” Turner warned, calling for governments around the globe to “produce a serious AI safety agreement that provides enough time and confidence to safeguard the world and all her peoples.”