Trump gives AI a new name in off-the-rails rant tying guardrails to climate change: ‘Nobody was dead’

Donald Trump attacked skeptics and AI experts who believe the technology is being developed too hastily in a Truth Social post on Monday likening them to environmental activists who warned of ecological collapse resulting from climate change.The president’s comments were the latest in a series of pro-AI sentiments he has shared in seeming defiance with the populist brand that came to define his presidency and political brand in many other aspects. “The same people that said, “We’ll all be dead in twelve years because of Global Warming,” a name since “reborn” to Climate Change, because the Planet was cooling, not warming, and nobody was dead, are the people that are now saying that AI is going to kill us, that robots are going to attack us, and everything is a DISASTER. This is more of a Hoax than even that of RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, UKRAINE, and Climate Change!” wrote Trump.Trump added that the technology would determine geopolitical dominance for years to come, and dubbed it “SUPER INTELLIGENCE”, part of his effort to rebrand the technology and repulse a wave of national skepticism about AI chatbots and the transfer of human roles to AI agents.“Whoever wins AI, WINS! We are leading now over China, and everyone else, and I’m going to keep it that way! I’m not going to stifle Growth, of something that will be bigger than the Industrial Revolution, or the Internet, itself,” wrote the president.Donald Trump likened AI skeptics to climate change activists (AFP/Getty)This isn’t Trump’s first statement decrying any effort to put guardrails on the use or development of artificial intelligence, frustrating technology experts and leaders in the AI development field who fear both that the technology has been rolled out to the public in existing forms with insufficient guardrails or safety provisions, as well as the possibilities and potential of the technology in the near future, which some directly involved in the field have warned could pose an extinction-level threat to humanity.The ominous predictions of AI’s potential threat to the entire human race have drawn ridicule from some given the vagueness with which the technology’s actual future capabilities are laid out. But amid a national and international backlash against the direction of AI’s role in modern society, even tech circles and some AI leaders are coming around to the idea that legal and ethical frameworks meant to protect the public are necessary and crucial to the technology’s acceptance among Americans in the short term.Just last week the president wrote on his Truth Social platform that any attempts at implementing AI guardrails were futile and would stifle America’s economic growth prospects, the main line he has stuck to in defense of his opposition to AI regulation. “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!” wrote the president.This is a breaking news report. More to follow...