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The Trump administration has a plan to make sure America wins the ongoing “AI race.” While many argue that America has been and continues to lead the race, China is closing in fast.
Reports from The Wall Street Journal suggest that China’s ongoing speedy development of AI is eroding the lead that America has held up until now. But, President Trump wants to increase that lead, not lose it, according to a newly released document called “America’s AI Action Plan.”
The plan, according to the document, relies heavily on “cutting the red tape” holding AI companies back. This means that the government won’t have any control over how fast and how far AI companies can go. Many worry that if left unchecked, more AI could easily lead to more scammers and other troubling developments. But Trump says that regulating AI too much could slow progress. Instead, he wants to give AI companies as much help as possible with tax incentives, more access to data stations (like those needed to power large language models), and so on down the list.
This is, of course, a troubling development for those arguing that we need more safety measures in place to regulate AI. Because the technology is so new, and so unregulated, we don’t have any real idea of how it will affect our society in the long run.
Troubling developments in AI safety
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Chief among the “pillars” of America’s AI Plan are plans to ensure AI is open-source and open-weight. Additionally, the Trump administration says that frontier AI should protect free speech and American values. Exactly what that means is hard to say, though, as some have argued that using AI to create mock videos of celebrities or even politicians is “free speech,” when it borders more on invasion of privacy, misuse of AI, and fraud. We’ve even seen President Trump release his own AI-generated videos, including a recent video that showed former President Obama being arrested by the FBI in the Oval Office.
Obviously, there is reason to be concerned about this plan. The increased development of AI sounds good on paper, and AI is surely only going to improve from where it is now. But there’s also the concern over how it might affect the American job market, as well as how it will affect our capacity for learning. Some studies already claim that we’re becoming less intelligent as we use AI, because it causes us to stop thinking for ourselves.
The entire plan is a bit of a doozy, with plans to extend access to American-made AI to allies and partners, too. It’s hard to say whether this AI plan will make or break America’s hold on the AI market. One thing is clear, though. With less regulation, it’s very likely that those scam calls and AI TikTok scam videos you hear about are only going to get more convincing as AI continues to improve without any safety regulations to hold it in place. Perhaps cautious commentary — including from the Godfather of AI — about AI taking over humanity should hold more weight with the masses than they currently do.
