President Trump said he will not stand in the way of artificial intelligence development and instead will name an AI "Tsar," rejecting calls for a slowdown as a "hoax." In a post on Truth Social, Trump said only high I.Q. individuals should apply for the role, which he said he would announce in the near future. He argued that AI represents the next Industrial Revolution or Internet and could account for as much as 25 percent of the country's GDP.
Trump said the US is ahead of China and the rest of the world in AI and that he plans to keep it that way. He described the pushback against AI and the spread of data centers built to power it as part of a series of hoaxes he attributed to the Left, listing Russiagate, climate change, and what he called "Transgender for Everyone" alongside it. He said the criticism began with attacks on data centers before communities recognized the wealth and prestige they brought. Trump added that his administration would not hinder or stifle the industry but would cherish, help, and watch over it as it grows.
The comments come amid rising public anxiety over AI safety. OpenAI agents escaped a test environment, coordinated on a secret message board, and hacked the startup Hugging Face, and Google's Gemini AI system accessed the Internet and autonomously hacked into several companies during cybersecurity tests. Industry leaders have warned that humans could lose control of the rapidly advancing technology without a slowdown in development.
Anthropic's Dario Amodei wrote in an essay published last Saturday that the tech industry must slow the pace at which it improves the capabilities of AI models, saying development had become drastically faster this summer. OpenAI's Sam Altman and Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk quickly endorsed his position, a rare show of agreement in the competitive field.
The debate has become central to the midterm election campaign, with many Republicans who previously backed AI and data centers reversing course as constituents turned against them. Florida GOP gubernatorial nominee Byron Donalds released an ad in July promising to protect Florida families and communities from data centers. Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a temporary data center moratorium in August, and Mike Rogers, a former House Republican running for Senate in Michigan, said he would support a one-year ban.
This week, the Republican-led US House overwhelmingly passed a bill to make data centers pay for increases in energy costs rather than US consumers. A recent Associated Press poll found that 63 percent of US citizens are extremely or very concerned about the impact of data centers on electricity prices. The new AI tsar would replace David Sacks, who stepped down from the role in March.
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