ANALYSIS | Trump claims AI poses no real risk — but even some of his allies disagree | CBC News

Public and bipartisan pressure are mounting amid dire warnings from experts

Fresh warnings that artificial intelligence models could go rogue and wipe out the human race appear to have jolted some U.S. politicians into action, but not President Donald Trump.

"AI taking over the World, destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX," Trump declared in one post.

Trump's posts come in response to dire predictions about the technology's potential risks and mounting calls from executives and researchers to rein in the industry.

While Trump is the most powerful voice in Washington opposing calls to rein in AI, he is far from the only one.

However, experts in AI policy see some encouraging signs in the past few days that the political momentum could now be shifting in favour of regulation.

Chris MacKenzie, vice-president of communications at Americans for Responsible Innovation, a non-profit advocacy group in Washington focused on AI safety, says one of the biggest obstacles to regulation has long been the amount of money stacked against it.

Last December, Trump signed an order directing the Department of Justice and the Attorney General to challenge state-level AI regulations in court. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)

"At the moment, what we see is a real window of opportunity where lawmakers and the public are mobilized around these issues and there's a clear desire to pass guardrails that will protect people from AI's risks," he said.

Warnings about the risks have accelerated in the past week, kicked off by Coxon's post stating that AI "could kill us all." They include:

Thursday: Anthropic, which makes the chatbot Claude, said it had banned some accounts linked to foreign governments and military actors for using its AI models to try to develop weapons.

Saturday: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published a 3,800-word essay urging a slower pace of AI development to manage the risks. His rivals Elon Musk, chief executive of X, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, supported his call.