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U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed warnings about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) as "a hoax," rejecting calls for guardrails on the technology and alleging a "sick conspiracy" against AI and data centers.
"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," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump suggested his administration has already intervened to stop AI companies from pursuing potentially harmful initiatives, singling out Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
"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!" Trump wrote, referring to Amodei's Saturday essay calling on AI companies to slow development.
"We already have tremendous criminal and regulatory power over these companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. Whoever wins AI, wins! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, beware!" he added.
In a separate post, Trump wrote: "AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX," comparing the concerns to past controversies from his first term.
"I am the Hoax Buster, and I'm right now breaking another Hoax, That AI is going to take over, consume, and destroy the World, and that Robots will be marching into our Cities, and getting rid of us all! This is even wilder than the RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA HOAX, or the Global Warming Scam," he wrote, posting on the subject more than half a dozen times over the course of the day.
Trump also compared AI critics to climate change activists.
"The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centers are bad for your neighborhood, are the same people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by 'Climate Change.' That HOAX never worked out for them, and now they're on to the next one," he wrote, calling opponents "Revolutionaries, but Revolutionaries for a Bad and Evil Cause."
Trump reiterated his position during a call with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, which Huang put on speakerphone during the All-In Summit.
"The robots will not be taking over. The AI will not be taking over the rest of the world. The whole thing is a hoax," Trump said, suggesting critics were "playing right into the hands of a lot of people that don't want to see it happen. That could be political people, that could also be China."
Trump praised data centers despite their growing unpopularity.
"Data centers are great, and they make people wealthy," he told Huang, adding: "It's the oil of the next 20, 25 years, it's bigger than the internet and AI, you know, much more so," while acknowledging people "have to be a little careful" and act "prudently."
Huang told Trump: "We're going to make sure that everybody wins in the AI race in America. Every industry, every company, every state, every people."
Trump also urged Google to reconsider a planned AI data center investment in Finland, criticizing the company for citing U.S. permitting difficulties.
"Google has recently stated that they want to build a massive Plant in Finland, all because they are finding permitting too difficult in the United States. I am not happy about this, and want them to change their thinking," Trump wrote.
Google announced last week it would invest at least $15 billion in Finnish data centers and digital infrastructure, calling it its largest single investment in Europe.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance struck a more measured tone, telling reporters the administration wants to "regulate smartly" and be "thoughtful about the risk," while suggesting some corporate lobbying for regulation might be disingenuous.
"You have so many frontier AI tech companies coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them, it feels a little bit to me like a bit of a Trojan horse," Vance said, adding that Washington must stay cautious while preserving its edge over China.
Trump's remarks came three days after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling on AI companies to "slow the pace" of development, a call quickly echoed by OpenAI's Sam Altman, Tesla and xAI's Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis.
The debate intensified after Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned the previous week, warning in a widely shared post that OpenAI and Anthropic were "gambling with our lives," a view echoed by fellow Anthropic researcher Evan Hubinger.
Congressional reaction was mixed along partisan lines.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for a Senate briefing with administration officials, while House Speaker Mike Johnson said Trump would likely convene AI industry leaders for a "deliberate discussion" of safety responsibilities.
A source told NBC News such a meeting was "in the works" but not yet scheduled. Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said he considers himself "long-term pro-AI" but warned against ignoring industry leaders' own calls for caution.
"I think we'd all look pretty damn silly if months from now we had an event that we could have stopped," Warner said.
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A recent NBC News Decision Desk poll found 70% of American adults are more worried about AI than excited about it, and 69% oppose new AI data centers in their area, including 57% of Republicans.
Public opinion on the issue remains divided.
"The reality is AI is here. We unleashed the beast," Maliyka Muhammad, a 46-year-old New Yorker, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"So I think that now we have to focus on taking steps to rein it in, to make it so that it doesn't go crazy," Muhammad added.
Others urged perspective: "We've gone through lots of challenges as a country," said Coleman Barton, a 56-year-old consultant from Memphis, Tennessee, noting, "So hopefully this is another obstacle or blessing, and anybody can look at it either way."
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