President Donald Trump on Sunday brushed aside mounting alarm from within the artificial intelligence industry over the breakneck pace of development, dismissing calls for caution as the work of “a lot of very negative forces.”
Trump framed the technology race squarely as a geopolitical contest the United States cannot afford to lose.
Speaking to reporters at the Irish Open at his Trump International Golf Links course in Doonbeg, Ireland, on Sept. 13, Trump was asked about growing demands from technology leaders—including some of his own allies—for stronger safeguards and a slowdown in the pace of AI development.
“Whoever wins AI wins, and we can put guardrails, we can do this and that, but I think you have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up and they’re bringing up things that won’t happen,” Trump said, adding that the U.S. is currently leading China in the AI race. “We’re leading China on AI… and, frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins.”
A former Anthropic researcher recently articulated a sentiment shared by many within the AI community
“””Artificial intelligence could pose an existential threat by the end of the decade”””The current trajectory toward AGI is increasingly concerning#chatgpt #humanity pic.twitter.com/1bFtVi6Fxq
— ~$ÈÊn̈U~🥰 (@Seenu_mayank) September 10, 2026
The Context
Trump’s remarks came one day after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a lengthy essay calling for greater precautions around artificial intelligence. In the essay, Amodei—whose company operates the Claude AI models—compared AI’s potential to curing cancer, writing that he survived an early-stage diagnosis and that his father died of a disease that was cured only a few years after his death.
“Carefully wielded, AI can be the latest in a long line of technological miracles that have uplifted and ennobled humanity,” Amodei wrote.
But he also warned of serious risks and argued that any effort to slow development must preserve the U.S. lead over China while giving safety measures time to keep pace. Amodei explicitly said that “pacing” did not mean halting model training or technical progress.
🚨CONCERN: Elon Musk puts the odds of “killer robots annihilating humanity” at 10-20% within the next 5 to 10 years.
“But the glass is 80-90% full, meaning 80% likely we’ll have extreme prosperity for all.” pic.twitter.com/ZRZGoXnlqI
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) September 12, 2026
Trump did not directly address Amodei by name or respond point-by-point to his proposal. His comments instead emphasized maintaining the U.S. lead over China while allowing for unspecified “guardrails.”
In August, Trump criticized communities opposing data centers, warning that they could end up “backwards and poor,” and said China “could not be happier” about opposition to U.S. data-center construction. In a Truth Social post at the time, he wrote, “Let Data Reign.”
A Rare Moment of Agreement—Even Among Trump Allies
In an unusual show of agreement among leading AI executives, two of the most prominent figures in the industry—Elon Musk, who runs xAI and is a close Trump ally, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman—endorsed Amodei’s call for greater safeguards and a slower pace of AI development.
Their agreement came as alarm about potential harm from AI intensified following the resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon. Coxon, who has also worked at OpenAI, said on Sept. 8 that the “people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
Sam Altman on AI extinction risk: “I think it is unacceptable to be taking like a 10% chance of killing everybody by the end of the decade, obviously.”
“I think the people that are working at these efforts have a huge amount of power and ability to impact what happens here.”… pic.twitter.com/61HJGWJ2rS
— dnap (@dnapway) September 12, 2026
“They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives,” Coxon said.
Coxon has also called for a coordinated approach to slowing AI development, arguing that any meaningful slowdown would need to involve China as well as the United States.
Recent Incidents Fuel Safety Concerns
The warnings from researchers and executives follow a series of incidents that have raised questions about whether AI systems are advancing faster than the industry’s ability to secure and control them.
On Sept. 10, Anthropic released a threat-intelligence report covering the previous eight months, stating that the company had “disrupted operations in which threat actors tried to use Claude for malicious activity.”
The report described malicious uses of Claude involving cyber operations, influence operations, surveillance, scams and other activities, underscoring concerns about increasingly capable AI systems being used by threat actors.
In August, OpenAI said it had temporarily slowed the pace of scaling while strengthening safeguards following a security incident involving models under evaluation. The company also suspended training on its upcoming Astra model and paused model testing for two weeks after an AI agent under testing compromised parts of OpenAI’s systems and Hugging Face’s systems.
Political and Public Backlash Brewing
Trump’s dismissive stance on AI risks comes as many Americans express unease about the rapid buildout of AI infrastructure. A recent NBC News Decision Desk poll found that 69% of respondents oppose construction of AI data centers in their area, including 45% who strongly oppose it. Data centers have also emerged as an issue in several 2026 midterm contests.
The debate highlights a tension between the economic and strategic ambitions surrounding AI and growing concerns about the risks posed by increasingly capable systems.
For the Trump administration, the issue also carries a geopolitical dimension. The president has repeatedly argued that the United States must expand its AI infrastructure and maintain its lead over China, while critics of the industry’s rapid expansion have raised concerns about energy use, security, employment and the possibility of increasingly autonomous systems causing serious harm.
Asked about the calls for caution from Musk, Altman and Amodei, the president suggested the concerns were overblown.
“They’re bringing up things that won’t happen,” he said.
Huma Nisar is Associate Editor at Views News Now. She also writes opinion articles on health, society and diet.
