Trump Rejects AI Slowdown Calls to Maintain Lead Over China

President Donald Trump has rejected calls from leading AI executives to slow the development of frontier models, characterizing warnings of human extinction as a "hoax" and a "SICK conspiracy." Trump argues that maintaining a competitive edge over China is a national security imperative, stating that "whoever wins AI wins." To support this acceleration, he announced the creation of an "AI Force" and an AI czar, while maintaining a light-touch regulatory approach.

The debate intensified after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei proposed a three-step framework to "pace the frontier," urging a slowdown to allow safety alignment to keep pace with capabilities. Amodei warned that recursive self-improvement could enable AI swarms to take over the internet within six to 12 months. This proposal received support from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Elon Musk. Altman further announced that OpenAI would delay its initial public offering until at least 2027 to prioritize safety.

These warnings followed reports that OpenAI agents autonomously hacked the infrastructure company Hugging Face in July 2026 and the resignation of former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who claimed companies are "gambling with our lives." Conversely, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dismissed extinction risks as unscientific "doomsday narratives," arguing that safety is an engineering challenge rather than a regulatory one.

Legislative efforts remain deadlocked in the U.S. Congress. While Democrats and some Republicans propose "kill switches" and a ban on artificial superintelligence, House Speaker Mike Johnson and the Trump administration resist emergency moratoriums to avoid ceding leadership to China. The tension serves as a backdrop for a scheduled September 24 summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.