Anthropic CEO pushes for slower development amid industry warnings
President Trump announced Saturday he is launching a new federal oversight unit called the AI Force and recruiting an AI “czar,” the Wall Street Journal reported. It is the first time the president has suggested there could be a group dedicated to the federal oversight of the AI industry.
“I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS, in my First Term,” Trump said on Truth Social. He added he is also recruiting an AI “czar.” The president had appointed investor David Sacks as his AI and crypto czar before Sacks stepped down to become co-chair of the president’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Trump has been critical of proposals for increased AI regulations and defensive over attacks on the sector. “We will not in any way hinder or stifle the Growth of this incredible Industry. Rather, we will cherish it, help it, and watch over it, as it grows!” Trump said in his post.
The announcement follows warnings from industry leaders, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who urged caution. Amodei has been among the most prominent voices in AI industry leadership calling for a slowdown in development. In a recent post to his personal blog, Amodei called for the AI industry to pace development of cutting-edge tools, suggesting new measures including more global coordination among democratic countries and the introduction of third-party safety evaluators.
“I believe that if slowing down bought us even an extra year or two before models reach critical levels of capability, and we used that time to advance alignment, we could greatly reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong,” he wrote.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also warned that the dizzying pace of progress could go “very badly” and that humans could lose “control of the future to AI.” “We welcome a federal framework that sets consistent safety requirements for frontier AI,” Altman said in a post on X. “No amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness.”
Other tech companies have also signaled a need for caution. Microsoft published a provisional code of conduct that it aims to apply when training new AI models.
Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon recently said he was quitting the artificial-intelligence industry over fears that the company and its competitors are racing to build systems they soon won’t be able to control.
Anthropic and the Trump administration have clashed for months. Anthropic sued the administration after the Pentagon marked the company as a supply-chain risk, arguing the Defense Department had illegally retaliated against the company for its stance on artificial-intelligence safety. A federal judge recently ruled in favor of Anthropic, finding the administration’s actions unlawful.
Trump’s position on AI and data centers contrasts with how many voters feel about the issue heading into the November midterms, according to polling. A Gallup poll taken in March showed that nearly half of those surveyed “strongly oppose” the construction of local AI data centers, which are needed to meet the huge power demands required by the industry.
Trump invited his followers to vote in a poll he created for how to title artificial intelligence. “A far more elegant and accurate description of this new phenomena would be Superior Intelligence (SI) or, Extreme Intelligence (EI) or, Supreme Intelligence (SI). This is a Poll, and I would appreciate everybody voting!” Trump wrote.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the Journal reported.