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Donald Trump has called AI safety warnings a “hoax” in response to claims the technology has a greater than 10% chance of killing all humans.
Last week, an Anthropic safety researcher claimed there is a greater than 10% chance that AI “could kill all humans” within the next decade, admitting there is no coordinated plan to prevent it from happening.
Since then, the bosses of the major AI tech companies have called for a global slowdown in AI development, and requested the U.S. government impose guardrails — such as a kill switch that can be checked by a third party — on AI. But in a series of posts on Truth Social, Trump made his position clear.
Trump said there was a “SICK conspiracy” underway to undermine AI development, and insisted he alone would prevent AI from going rogue. He compared AI safety concerns to what he called the “Global Warming Scam,” and called for an acceleration in data center development.
“The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centers are bad for your neighborhood, are the same people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by ‘Climate Change,’” Trump wrote. “That HOAX never worked out for them, and now they’re on to the next one.”
The U.S. president called himself "the Hoax Buster,” saying the only "guardrails" needed for AI was a "strong and smart" president.
Nvidia boss Jensen Huang — who is at the heart of the AI boom — took a phone call from Trump while he was on-stage at a conference. Huang, himself an opponent of AI regulation, put Trump on speakerphone for a conversation that has since gone viral on social media.
“I’m telling you it’s all a hoax,” Trump said as Huang help up a microphone to a phone. “Data centers are great and they make people wealthy and they make states wealthy. It’s the oil of the next 20-25 years. It’s bigger than the internet. They’re just playing right into the hands of a lot of people who don’t want to see it happen. They could be political people. It could also be China. And we’re not going to let that happen.
“The robots are not gonna be taking over the world. That’s not gonna happen.”
Last week, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon announced his resignation on X / Twitter, accusing both ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Claude maker Anthropic of “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”
“Neither company is acting responsible,” Coxon said. “Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing.
“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible — but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.”
Coxon said that staff at OpenAI, headed up by Sam Altman, “have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes,” which is why work to rapidly improve its AI models continues despite the risks. “At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first," he insisted. “They believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk.”
“Accepting this race and entering the ‘endgame’ is a hubristic gamble that should not be launched from a private company’s Slack. Attempting to speedrun alignment should require extraordinary confidence that there are no better trajectories available.”
Coxon went on to say he was optimistic about the potential for coordination, but doubted AI companies were on track to prevent a global race, “which may require costly actions such as a temporary ban on improving model capabilities.”
He ended his statement by urging AI lab researchers to consider what they were doing. “Do you want to kick off a superintelligent RL run without a rigorous understanding of its mind?” he asked. “Should you put your head down because ‘it’s happening anyway’ - or take this moment to call for different conditions?”
Coxon’s statement sent shockwaves throughout social media, sparking alarm and a string of mainstream headlines. It was backed up by Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s ‘Alignment Science’ lead, who added an even starker warning.
“Jacob is correct here — we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!" he said. “I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”
In recent days, Altman, Anthropic boss Dario Amodei, and Grok boss Elon Musk have all suggested their willingness to work together to slow down AI development. Altman has said this “pacing” would not mean “stopping.” In a social media post, he said: “Progress has been rapid and will continue to be. But it should be slower than it otherwise could be; interventions like safety cases and monitoring have significant costs. Pacing will be well worth this cost; no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness, or let capabilities get ahead of alignment and monitoring. Where we will need the help of our government is for international coordination. But first we should do what we can ourselves.”
In further posts, Trump said the U.S. already has “tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies!”
“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.
He insisted he had already prevented AI companies from doing “bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’” and singled out Anthropic boss Dario Amodei for “now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel.’”
According to CNN, some White House officials are worried about Trump’s lack of concern about the dangers of AI amid growing public skepticism and fear of the technology.
Vice President JD Vance said Monday that the administration is "concerned" about the technology, but said AI companies calling for government oversight feels like a "Trojan horse."
"It's something that we're concerned by, but we want to make sure that we actually regulate smartly, and we're thoughtful about the risk here,” he said. “So, there are obviously risks to AI. There are some benefits to AI. I have to say, just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many Frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them — it feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse.”
Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP via Getty Images.
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