WASHINGTON: In June 2024, during a campaign stop in Las Vegas, then-candidate Donald Trump got a glimpse of the technology that would come to define his second presidential term.
OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and then-chief operating officer Brad Lightcap showed the Republican a preview version of the artificial intelligence (AI) startup’s Sora image and video-generation tool, an offering that has since been discontinued.
Trump and Brockman used it to visualise a golf course on the moon, according to people familiar with the meeting who requested anonymity to describe a private interaction.
But the meeting took a more serious turn.
Trump raised a glaring national security concern: What if foreign adversaries used AI to impersonate him?
Brockman and Lightcap assured him deepfake mitigation techniques such as watermarking could minimise those risks, the people said.
That exchange foretold the dilemma Trump is grappling with now on AI: how to foster a technology that’s underpinned US economic growth while also mitigating safety concerns raised by an alarming spate of hacks by rogue AI models.
It’s left administration officials struggling to balance promoting AI adoption against addressing unpredictable cybersecurity risks, according to people familiar with internal deliberations.
As he heads into a high-stakes summit in Washington this month with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with AI safety as a top issue, Trump is sticking with a hands-off approach.
The president’s largely toothless June order on AI cybersecurity has come to symbolise his reluctance to impede hundreds of billions of dollars in tech investment.
Administration officials are wary of undercutting the United States lead over China, an advantage challenged by a new vanguard of Chinese developers, including Moonshot AI.
Yet Trump’s insistence on a light touch has been tested by revelations that models from OpenAI and Anthropic PBC had escaped secure testing environments and hacked other companies’ systems.
Amplifying those episodes, calls are growing from within the industry – punctuated this week by the high-profile resignation of an Anthropic researcher over existential fears – to slow the pace of AI development.
Even on Wall Street, where the AI boom has lifted the broader stock market, some prominent investors have made dire pronouncements about the technology’s growth.
Greg Jensen, co-chief investment officer of hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates, warned on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast it may take AI “killing people” for anyone to try and curb it.
The policy paralysis could have major consequences.
The longer administration officials remain undecided on how or whether to police AI, the likelier it becomes that companies will race ahead without common guardrails, even as more executives call for them.
OpenAI chief executive officer Sam Altman told employees this week the firm is considering slowing development and hopes its rivals do the same, Bloomberg News reported.
In public remarks, Trump has mostly dismissed new AI restrictions, instead focusing on staying ahead of China and touting the technology’s benefits.
Asked by reporters last Thursday if he has any concerns about AI leading to human extinction, Trump said: “No, I don’t have any.
“I have concerns that if we don’t win AI, we’re going to be put in a very bad position,” the president said.
“We are leading China right now by a pretty good period.
“I would say a year, which is, you know, considered a lot.”
Turf WarInside the administration, a turf war has simmered for months over how to handle AI, especially its unanswered security questions.
Ever since Anthropic warned in April that its Mythos system was adept at finding previously unknown computer vulnerabilities and could only be shared with trusted partners, Trump’s top advisers have battled over ways to address AI’s core safety issues.
On one side, backing more robust protections, are Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe confidential deliberations.
Following Anthropic’s Mythos warnings, Bessent summoned a meeting of top Wall Street leaders to hear their concerns about financial-sector exposure, while Cairncross has kept in close touch with cyber experts spooked by the new model’s capabilities, the people said.
Since then, Bessent has helped craft plans for an independent regulator to vet the safety of AI models that would be akin to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Bloomberg News has reported.
The proposal, which would give companies a role in setting safety standards and address tech industry concerns about the ad hoc nature of AI policy, has yet to advance beyond the drafting stages, some of the people said.
Others in Trump’s orbit – led by White House science and technology adviser Michael Kratsios and former AI czar David Sacks – have backed the tech industry’s view that regulations risk stifling innovation.
Sacks, a venture capitalist who’s kept in contact with Trump, has warned that virtually any guardrails would risk consolidating power within a few large AI companies while giving China an opportunity to overtake the United States.
He has also insisted that existing liability laws are enough to incentivise companies to minimise harm.
Tensions between the two sides erupted weeks before Trump signed his AI security order on June 2.
Early versions of the directive would have compelled AI companies to share their models before release, the people said.
Even before the order drafting had kicked off in earnest, some officials, including vice-president JD Vance, had floated ideas of using the Defense Production Act to compel companies to disclose information and work with national security agencies, the people added.
Vance’s idea came on the heels of a threat by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to invoke the Cold War-era law as leverage in the Pentagon’s bitter contracting fight with Anthropic over extra safeguards the firm sought for military use of its AI tools – a confrontation that has complicated efforts to create a framework for mitigating cyber risks.
An administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Trump’s advisers continue to work with the industry on developing the framework.
In a statement, a White House spokesperson said: “The President’s entire team is working closely together to balance innovation and security in AI policymaking.”
Spokespeople for OpenAI and Anthropic didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The Commerce and Treasury Departments, as well as Vance’s office, also didn’t respond.
Late in the process of crafting the order, Sacks called Trump to kill a draft he found to be too restrictive, and top officials were far apart even before it reached the president’s desk, according to people familiar with the matter.
“I really thought that could have been a blocker, and I want to make sure that it’s not,” Trump told reporters in mid-May, after quashing the measure.
Trump eventually signed a compromise version on June 2 that barely papered over lingering differences among senior officials.
The directive called for the government to review AI models – shared by companies on a voluntary basis – up to 30 days before their release.
It also nudged top AI companies to collaborate with the administration in selecting trusted partners for early access to cutting-edge systems. — Bloomberg
