AI’s top leaders, like children afraid of a bully

“This guy is a monster,” Donald Trump said in front of Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive. “And nobody knows him. What a great life! To be a monster and not have to go through this,” Trump continued, pointing at the reporters who follow him everywhere. Pichai stood beside him, waiting to speak with an expression of resigned disbelief. Before the exchange ended, Trump joked about his Indian name: “Sundarrrrr is his name.” When Pichai finally spoke, he tried to play it down: “Hopefully, that will be a better tagline than ‘I’m a monster,’” he said.The scene took place after Trump’s meeting this week with the top leaders of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. It happened during remarks to the press on the White House lawn. The meeting was used to sign an agreement stating that the big tech firms should self-regulate and forget about the government stepping in to slow the progress of the new models.At heart it was a group of extremely wealthy people behaving like children fearful of a bully. Several videos show nervous laughter, awkward looks and absurd jokes from Trump enjoying himself in front of some of the richest people in the world.The most viral clip on social media is a roughly 70-second cut that clearly shows Dario Amodei’s nerves — Amodei is Anthropic’s co-founder and the leading proponent of slowing down AI. Trump disagrees with him, but they now seem to be on good terms. Before Amodei spoke, Trump told reporters: “Whatever he says [pointing to the Anthropic representative] is fine.” He then grabbed his arm and whispered: “Be careful.”Amodei is clearly an eccentric man. But his exaggerated laugh lasted a second and a half. It was epic, pure theater. Then Amodei spoke for a few seconds, and that was it. Meanwhile, Trump moved closer to Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, as if he were the mischief-maker hiding behind a tree. He treated them all like children, whispering jokes in their ears. In the background, Elon Musk’s expression was plainly one of wounded pride.Trump returned to his remarks and called out CNN, which has been at odds with the president these days, saying: “CNN, fake news”. It was a poker-faced moment for the executives. Trump was attacking a major news outlet and they were standing beside him, partly tolerating the insult. There was nothing to smile about; the best option was to fade into the background.Zuckerberg seemed to no longer care, as if he were above reproach, and he even managed a small, uncomfortable smile. This is clearer in another image where Amodei is seen retreating:Before those ridiculous scenes, there was someone at that meeting of AI chiefs with Trump who usually goes unnoticed but who was standing to the president’s right. It was Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive — the most valuable company in the world. The language of the agreement reflects Huang’s view: that AI companies should cry less and solve their problems on their own. Zuckerberg shares that view.A few days earlier, Huang had spent nearly two hours on a podcast talking about AI. He explained why there is no need to be afraid. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993; the company designs chips used for AI. He is the seventh-richest person in the world, just behind Mark Zuckerberg. He has never been very talkative and usually keeps a serious demeanor.Huang believes Amodei, Altman and others are exaggerating and should stop scaring people. His argument is simple: if they truly suspect their product is dangerous, don’t release it. What other company would put on the market something that could cause death and destruction?He speaks with calm confidence. He is also emphatic about what AI is (“it’s just software”) and says it will not cause more problems than other historical revolutions: “If we’re going to build a car, a self-driving car, and we have no idea how to align them to the safety standards … what’s the answer? Don’t ship it. It’s an engineering problem. You have to know how to solve it. If you say there is no way to contain our experiments, our AI is going to get out and damage the world … we have to shut the labs because the cost to humanity … the damage is too great,” Huang explains in a notably un-apocalyptic tone.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition