Donald Trump was scheduled for a dinner meeting with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Sunday night at the White House amid heated discourse about the emergence of artificial intelligence.
While the President has become a major booster of AI, those both inside and outside the industry have warned of its potential dangers, including Bill Gates‘ prediction that it could kill a billion people.
Amodei – who The New York Times reported will dine with Trump Sunday night – is an insider who has expressed skepticism, saying at the UN earlier this week: ‘If managed poorly, I even believe AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole.’
He has called on world leaders to help prevent AI from building biological weapons, figure out how to verify what models have the capability to do and ‘establish common standards’ for testing and for loss of control and misuse.
Trump – who has proposed a rebranding of AI to ‘Super Intelligence’ or ‘SI’ – has repeatedly rejected calls for a slowdown, describing fears that AI could ‘destroy humanity’ as a ‘HOAX.’
He has argued that America cannot afford to fall behind China and has portrayed AI as a crucial economic and strategic race.
Trump has directly taken shots at Amodei’s alarmism in a Truth Social Media post earlier this month.
‘The Trump Administration has stopped AI ”people” from doing bad, or potentially bad, ”things,” like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel, and we will continue to do so!’
Donald Trump was scheduled for a dinner meeting with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Sunday night at the White House amid heated discourse about the emergence of artificial intelligence
Amodei himself is one such insider skeptic, saying at the UN earlier this week: ‘If managed poorly, I even believe AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole’
The White House said that the administration was working to advance the technology in a safe and effective way.
‘President Trump has been clear: America will lead the world in Super Intelligence, while protecting American consumers,’ a White House official said.
‘We will drive innovation, strengthen American competitiveness, and ensure this transformative technology works for the American people.’
The Daily Mail has reached out to Anthropic for comment.
Trump has shown little interest in regulating AI, which has been a major driver of recent US economic growth.
The Republican president himself has struck deals with Silicon Valley firms that more closely tie the economy to their successes.
San Francisco venture capitalist David Sacks, who co-chairs Trump´s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, has dismissed calls for an AI slowdown as fearmongering from the ‘Doomer Industrial Complex.’
The reality is the Trump administration already evaluates some of the tech giants´ models through a little-known federal agency, the US Center for AI Standards and Innovation.
Democratic President Joe Biden created the agency in 2023, when it was heralded as a clearinghouse for labs to voluntarily submit advanced AI models for testing.
The agency still exists, but the field has since expanded to include an array of independent evaluation firms, such as Berkeley, California-based nonprofit METR, which Amodei suggested in a recent essay could help vet his company’s safety practices.
But fears of the new technology are real and cross the partisan divide in an increasingly polarized America.
Amodei has called on world leaders to agree on not letting AI build biological weapons, figure out how to verify what models have the capability to do and ‘establish common standards’ for testing and for loss of control and misuse
Bill Gates (pictured) called for greater government oversight of the emerging tech, while sharing that it could cause ‘a billion deaths’
A new Politico poll, conducted by Public First from September 13 – 15, found that around two-thirds of Americans believe advanced AI poses at least a moderate risk of eventually destroying humanity.
The concern crosses party lines, with 70 percent of 2024 Kamala Harris voters and 60 percent of Trump voters seeing such a risk.
Americans are also leaning toward slowing or pausing the development of more advanced AI rather than simply pushing ahead, according to the survey.
About half believe technology leaders warning that AI could become catastrophic genuinely believe their warnings, while only 26 percent think they are using the threat as a marketing stunt.
Not all AI companies endorse a slowdown. Chipmaker Nvidia´s CEO Jensen Huang said in a phone conversation with Trump – a call he took onstage at a conference – that he agrees there has been excessive AI alarmism and companies can choose to pace themselves.
But while appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Microsoft founder Gates called for greater government oversight of the emerging tech, while sharing that it could cause ‘a billion deaths.’
‘AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths,’ Gates told Meet the Press moderator Kirsten Welker, before adding, ‘So even though it’s pretty hard to get to 100 per cent [of humanity], there’s never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools.’
Gates also appeared to offer up some potential solutions, when asked by Welker, ‘what would prevent tragedies from happening due to AI specifically?’
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman talks with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at President Donald Trump’s State Dinner for China’s President Xi Jinping on September 24. Altman and Zuckerberg are some of the trailblazers in the AI world
He warned that artificial intelligence could make it dangerously difficult to distinguish between scientists developing lifesaving medicines and bad actors seeking to create biological weapons.
‘I wish it was easier to distinguish good intent, like I want to design a new drug for a disease, versus negative intent, which is I want to design a tool of bioterrorism,’ Gates told Welker.
This comes after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon sensationally resigned from his position and accused the company and its rival OpenAI of not doing enough to address the potential dangers of the technology earlier this month.
Coxon warned that researchers working in the field believe AI could potentially ‘kill all humans’ by the end of the decade.
Days later, an Anthropic report said that it has stopped several potential plots to build biological weapons using its artificial intelligence this year.
The company determined that scientists were using its platforms to conduct research that could be used to develop biological weapons, according to the company’s new AI misuse report that was obtained by The New York Times.
Anthropic was unable to determine if the research ‘served a legitimate or nefarious purpose,’ the report said.
The firm noted that valid biological inquiry can result in scientific breakthroughs like vaccines, but the company erred on the side of caution because that same research could also be used to create dangerous pathogens.
