Trump says AI concerns a "hoax" in on stage call with Nvidia CEO

Fears of AI sparking an existential crisis for humanity have been batted away by American President Trump, who called the predictions a "hoax" in an interview-interrupting phone call to Nvidia's CEO.

Last week, an Anthropic researcher quit the company over concerns that the AI arms race was unsafe for humans. One of his colleagues subsequently predicted there was a more than 10% chance that AI will end humanity in the near future.

That sparked a call for greater regulation of AI and calls from inside the industry – including from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei – to slow down the pace of frontier model development, with the US Congress looking set to demand action.

The fears of AI superintelligence causing harm to humans aren't new, and plenty of experts have suggested this is another phase in the AI hype cycle, designed to boost Anthropic ahead of a looming IPO, let AI companies self-regulate, or slow the progress of challengers such as China to keep them from catching up.

Trump calls AI fears a hoax

Trump also disputed the AI doomerism fears, though for different reasons. His addition to the discourse came via a phone call to Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang, who was onstage at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles, California at the time. Huang answered the phone, put it on speaker mode, and informed Trump that he was "speaking with the world".

"The robots will not be taking over," he said. "The AI will not be taking over the rest of the world. The whole thing is a hoax."

"I'm telling you, it's all a hoax," Trump continued. "The data centers are great, and they make people wealthy, and they make states wealthy. And it's the oil of the next 20, 25 years."

Of critics, he said: "They're just playing into the hands of a lot of people that don't want to see it happen. And that could be political people, it could also be China, and we're not going to let that happen. It's a hoax."

Trump did admit that "we have to be careful" and "do things prudently", but added: "that doesn't mean we're going to stop an industry".

At one point, Huang responded: "We're going to make sure that everybody wins in the AI race in America. Every industry, every company, every state, every people."

No guardrails, just Trump?

The call echoes other comments made by the American president on his personal social media site, which said pushback against the technology was a "sick conspiracy." Trump also said that Anthropic's CEO was "pretending to be a 'perfect little angel'" and that the US administration had previously stopped Amodei and other "AI people" from doing "bad or potentially bad things".

Rather than regulation or a pause in development, all AI needs is a "strong and smart" president.

The American people don't necessarily agree. A poll by the University of Massachusetts found only 23% of people approve of Trump's handling of AI, versus 57% who disapprove. A separate study from the University of Maryland found 85% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans want AI regulated and monitored by a government agency.

Congress also doesn't appear to agree with Trump, with Democrats and some Republicans pushing for action – though as one noted, government regulation of the technology might not come easy given the current political climate. Rick Scott, a Republican senator for Florida, reportedly said: "Did we balance the budget? Oh, did we pass a budget? See, what have we gotten done? So you think we're going to get AI done?"

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