President Trump said he has no concerns about AI posing an existential threat, emphasizing competition with China instead, as researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic publicly warn that unchecked AI development could prove catastrophic.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he has no concerns about artificial intelligence posing an existential threat to humanity, rejecting a growing chorus of warnings from researchers inside two of the country's most prominent AI laboratories.
"No, I don't have any," Trump told reporters when asked whether he worried about AI leading to human extinction. "I have concerns that if we don't win AI, we're going to be put in a very bad position."
Trump framed the issue in terms of geopolitical competition, adding: "We are leading China right now by a pretty good period, I would say a year, which is, you know, considered a lot."
The remarks came as researchers at Anthropic and OpenAI have stepped up public warnings about the pace of AI development.
Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon said Tuesday that he was resigning from the company over concerns that Anthropic and rival OpenAI are "gambling with our lives." Coxon added that those building AI believed it could "kill us all by the end of the decade" — a view that has since been echoed by other employees at both labs.
Much of the alarm centers on a capability known as recursive self-improvement, or RSI, in which AI models develop the ability to enhance their own performance without human intervention.
"It's hard to overstate how dangerous speeding towards RSI is," said Jasmine Wang, an OpenAI researcher working on AI alignment, in a post on Wednesday evening.
OpenAI's chief scientist Jakub Pachocki said Saturday that he has a "strong expectation" that the current pace of progress in AI could be sustained into recursive self-improvement, adding: "I am concerned no one is prepared for the consequences of a continued rapid rise in machine intelligence."
Trump's dismissal of those concerns reflects a broader tension in Washington between prioritizing AI competitiveness with China and establishing guardrails on frontier model development.
Lawmakers from both parties have begun advancing legislative proposals aimed at increasing oversight. In July, Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., and Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., announced plans to introduce a bill called the FRONTIER Act, which would establish a framework governing the deployment of advanced AI models.
"Safety researchers are resigning, powerful AI models are breaking out of their labs, and companies are racing ahead anyway," Trahan wrote on X on Wednesday. "It's past time for Congress to get off the sidelines and do its job."
Earlier this month, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, which would temporarily halt advanced AI development until the federal government puts safety rules in place.
The divergence between the administration's position and the proposals advancing in Congress underscores the absence of a unified federal approach to AI governance — even as the U.S.-China competition in the sector intensifies and warnings from within the industry grow louder.
Sara Montes de Oca is the Editor in Chief of TechEchelon. Previously a correspondent and producer in Washington, D.C., covering business, finance, and politics.
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