One word that explains Trump’s AI denialism

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Washington’s biggest question this week: Why is President Donald Trump so furiously against an AI slowdown in the wake of apocalyptic warnings from some top industry executives?

The clue is in one word — “hoax” — that he’s using to ridicule fears that computerized agents could one day seek to destroy humanity.

When Trump reaches for the H-word, two things are usually happening: He’s facing a controversy threatening his political or personal priorities, and he’s lost control of the politics.

Trump has long dismissed climate change as a “hoax.” So it was a tell that he went on social media to specifically draw an analogy between a planet that is warming despite his denials and the calls for AI controls expressed by leaders in the industry.

By changing reality, Trump frees himself from an obligation to act. In energy policy, that means “drill, baby, drill.” His administration has slashed regulation , pleasing oil industry donors. His rants against wind farms suggest he hankers for a 20th-century economy running on carbon.

The Jeffrey Epstein saga is a “Democratic hoax,” according to Trump . Searing testimonies from the accused sex offender’s victims make this a ridiculous charge. But Trump wants to end the storm over his onetime friend that periodically trips up his administration.

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The same is true of another supposed “hoax”: the investigations into the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. The outrage was the culmination of another event Trump wants America to forget: his bid to overturn the 2020 election. The hoax routine worked — it got him back to the White House to wield expansive executive power.

The president seems to hope that by simply branding fears of runaway AI as a hoax, he can make them go away.

One of a president’s jobs is to counsel a fearful nation, to examine and explain threats, and to advise whether a national effort must be summoned. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Franklin Roosevelt said at the start of a presidency deep in the Great Depression.

Every commander in chief followed suit in the Cold War. And George W. Bush corralled the country after 9/11, almost exactly 25 years ago.

That’s not Trump’s way.

But even as a political matter, Trump might be advised to take the AI freakout seriously. Americans are worried — not necessarily about extinction, but that the new technology will take their jobs. And by rejecting voter concerns about data centers , the president is leaping onto the wrong side of yet another issue as the GOP braces for tough midterm elections .

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But the president’s blasé attitude to AI may be traced to a host of political, economic and personality traits that have unleashed turmoil across his two presidencies and that will shape his legacy.

One reason may be economic.

Any signal that AI development may slow would almost certainly trigger a reaction on the markets. As his Iran war sticks Americans with high gas prices and record diesel costs , Trump can’t afford any Wall Street turbulence that would hurt 401k accounts and check GDP growth.

He’s also showing philosophical objections to a slowdown. His presidency has been about unleashing business to make money, not dialing it back.

Former White House AI czar David Sacks argued over the weekend that by expressing concerns about AI’s destructive potential, industry titans were trying to pressure politicians and the public into creating their own “preferred” regulatory system.

Trump is taking a similar approach. “When, in the History of Business, did anyone see the Leaders of an Industry call for Regulation that, if strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy?” the president wrote Monday.

Trump’s governing style isn’t a good fit for this deeply complex issue. He said this week that he’s an AI user, but whether that goes beyond posting wild memes depicting himself as various superheroes is unclear. And he gets his news from the traveling printer of his aide Natalie Harp .

At the same time, there’s a possibility that’s often overlooked in the riotous Washington of the second Trump era: What if the president is going against the tide because he’s right about a few things?

This would not be the first time that a new technology has triggered warnings of doom that don’t play out. And some skeptics doubt alarmist talk from AI chiefs is genuine, suspecting that they are obliquely talking up the potential of their technology ahead of initial public offerings in the coming months.

And Trump has a serious point that even if the US slows AI development, China probably won’t, which would give it a superpower advantage.

Plenty of Democrats feel the same way, including President Joe Biden’s former national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who wrote in Foreign Affairs earlier this year that Washington “must up its game” in integrating AI across the military, warning that the US would lose leverage if it failed.

But Trump’s vision of his own power and place in history also explain his behavior.

He posted on Monday that America would be fine because it had a “STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT.” This might placate some supporters — but even if it’s true, it’s hardly a viable position. AI will be a generational issue long after he’s left office, and Trump, as the incumbent president, has a responsibility to set an early course.

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Trump critics might wonder whether his views are shaped by personal considerations, including his ownership of stocks exposed to AI, as disclosed in a recent financial filing. The White House insists his accounts are independently managed by third-party institutions. But ethical questions raised by administration officials regulating industries in which their personal wealth is deeply invested has been a constant shadow over the president’s second term.

Trump’s resistance to unpleasant truths is also at work.

He’s never presented his presidency as a vehicle for confronting far-off threats or to tackle complex problems. He’s used it to enact revenge against his enemies, to troll his political foes, to boost his own fame and to invade the psyches of billions of people across the globe.

Trump would never issue the kind of dialectical statement that his first predecessor, President Barack Obama , released on Tuesday. The 44th president said he’d been agonizing over AI for a decade and that it was time for top US leaders to convene a national conversation.

“Whether this technology results in amazing breakthroughs in medicine, energy and education or unleashes huge economic disruptions, greater inequality, and potential catastrophe will depend on the choices that we make right now – choices that should be made not just by the companies involved, but by all of us,” Obama wrote.

Some Americans might have hoped from similar from Trump. But he’s a rebel and a backlash president. His anti-establishment credentials depend on being an outsider, not a unifier.

And Obama’s path ultimately points to a US-led international coalition. Trump hates multinational altruism. “America First” is about doubling down on US power, not watering it down.

If Trump refuses to lead, will Congress step in?

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There’s no time for serious action before the midterms. But if AI explodes as a top campaign theme, it’s likely to drive the legislative agenda of whoever controls the House and Senate next year. And if Republicans suffer a wipeout because of Trump’s refusal to listen to voters, they may have an incentive to break with the president.

But they will be on their own.

“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!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.

朱莉娅·德马雷·尼金森/美联社

本周华盛顿最大的问题是：在一些行业高管发出世界末日警告之后，为什么唐纳德·特朗普总统如此强烈地反对人工智能发展放缓？

线索就在一个词里——“骗局”——他用这个词来嘲讽人们对电脑特工有朝一日可能会毁灭人类的担忧。

当特朗普说出那个“H”开头的词时，通常有两种情况发生：一是他面临着威胁其政治或个人优先事项的争议；二是他已经失去了对政治的控制。

特朗普长期以来一直将气候变化斥为“骗局”。因此，他特意在社交媒体上将地球变暖（尽管他一直否认）与业内领袖呼吁控制人工智能的呼声进行类比，这很能说明问题。

通过改变现实，特朗普得以摆脱采取行动的义务。在能源政策方面，这意味着“疯狂钻探”。他的政府大幅削减了监管，以取悦石油行业的捐助者。他对风力发电场的抨击表明，他渴望回到20世纪那种以碳排放为主导的经济模式。

特朗普称杰弗里·爱泼斯坦事件是“民主党的骗局”。然而，来自这位性侵犯受害者的令人痛心的证词表明，这种指控荒谬至极。但特朗普仍想结束这场围绕他这位昔日好友的风暴，这场风暴时不时地给他的政府带来麻烦。

乔·雷德尔/盖蒂图片社

另一起所谓的“骗局”也是如此：即对2021年1月6日国会大厦骚乱的调查。这场骚乱是特朗普试图让美国遗忘的另一件事的最终结果：他试图推翻2020年大选结果。这套骗局伎俩奏效了——它让他重返白宫，继续行使广泛的行政权力。

总统似乎希望，只要把对失控人工智能的恐惧贴上骗局的标签，就能消除这种恐惧。

总统的职责之一是安抚恐惧的国民，审视并解释各种威胁，并就是否需要动员全国力量提出建议。“我们唯一需要恐惧的就是恐惧本身，”富兰克林·罗斯福在大萧条时期开启总统任期时如是说。

冷战时期，每一位三军统帅都效仿了这种做法。而乔治·W·布什在9·11事件后，也就是差不多25年前，也采取了类似的措施来控制国家局势。

那不是特朗普的行事风格。

但即便从政治角度来看，特朗普或许也应该认真对待人工智能引发的恐慌。美国民众感到担忧——并非一定担心灭绝，而是担心这项新技术会抢走他们的工作。而总统对选民关于数据中心的担忧置之不理，这无疑又让共和党在即将到来的艰难中期选举中，再次在另一项议题上站错了队。

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但总统对人工智能的漠不关心的态度可能源于一系列政治、经济和个性特征，这些特征在他两届总统任期内引发了动荡，并将塑造他的政治遗产。

其中一个原因可能是经济方面的。

任何人工智能发展可能放缓的迹象几乎肯定会引发市场反应。由于他的伊朗战争导致美国民众承受着高昂的汽油价格和创纪录的柴油价格，特朗普无法承受任何可能损害401k退休账户并抑制GDP增长的华尔街动荡。

他也从哲学层面反对经济放缓。他的总统任期旨在释放企业活力，创造利润，而不是限制经济。

前白宫人工智能主管大卫·萨克斯周末表示，通过表达对人工智能破坏性潜力的担忧，行业巨头们试图向政界人士和公众施压，以建立他们自己“偏爱的”监管体系。

特朗普也采取了类似的做法。“纵观商业史，何时有人见过哪个行业的领导者呼吁制定监管措施，而这些措施一旦严格执行，就会将他们推向灭亡和破产的边缘？”总统周一写道。

特朗普的执政风格并不适合处理这个极其复杂的问题。他本周声称自己是人工智能用户，但除了发布一些把自己描绘成各种超级英雄的搞笑表情包之外，他是否真的会使用人工智能，目前还不得而知。而且，他获取新闻的方式竟然是依靠助手娜塔莉·哈普的随身打印机。

与此同时，在特朗普第二个时代动荡不安的华盛顿，还有一种可能性常常被忽视：如果总统逆潮流而行，是因为他的一些观点是正确的呢？

这并非新技术首次引发末日预言，而最终这些预言并未成真。一些怀疑论者质疑人工智能巨头们危言耸听的言论是否真心，他们怀疑这些巨头只是在未来几个月公司上市前，借机炒作其技术的潜力。

特朗普的观点很有道理，即使美国放慢人工智能的发展速度，中国也可能不会，这将使中国获得超级大国的优势。

许多民主党人也有同感，包括乔·拜登总统的前国家安全顾问杰克·沙利文。沙利文今年早些时候在《外交事务》杂志上撰文指出，华盛顿“必须提高”将人工智能整合到军队中的水平，并警告说，如果失败，美国将失去影响力。

但特朗普对自己权力和历史地位的认知也能解释他的行为。

他周一发帖称，美国会一切安好，因为它有一位“强大而睿智（高智商！）的总统”。这或许能安抚一些支持者——但即便如此，这也算不上一个可行的立场。人工智能在他卸任后仍将是一个影响几代人的问题，而作为现任总统，特朗普有责任尽早制定应对策略。

伊芙琳·霍克斯坦/路透社

特朗普的批评者可能会质疑，他的观点是否受到个人因素的影响，例如他持有的与人工智能相关的股票（正如他最近提交的财务文件中披露的那样）。白宫坚称，他的账户由第三方机构独立管理。但是，政府官员监管着他们个人财富大量投资的行业，由此引发的道德问题，一直笼罩着特朗普的第二个任期。

特朗普对令人不快的真相的抵触情绪也在发挥作用。

他从未将总统职位视为应对遥远威胁或解决复杂问题的工具。他利用总统职位对敌人进行报复，嘲讽政治对手，提升自身声望，并侵蚀全球数十亿人的思想。

特朗普绝不会发表像他的首任前任奥巴马总统周二发表的那种辩证声明。这位第44任总统表示，他十年来一直为人工智能问题苦恼不已，现在是时候让美国高层领导人召开一次全国性对话了。

奥巴马写道：“这项技术究竟会在医学、能源和教育领域带来惊人的突破，还是会引发巨大的经济动荡、加剧不平等，甚至造成潜在的灾难，将取决于我们现在做出的选择——这些选择不仅应该由相关公司做出，更应该由我们所有人做出。”

一些美国人或许曾对特朗普抱有类似的期望。但他是一位叛逆者，一位反弹型总统。他的反建制立场建立在他作为局外人的身份之上，而非团结者的角色。

奥巴马的道路最终指向美国主导的国际联盟。特朗普憎恨跨国利他主义。“美国优先”意味着加倍增强美国实力，而不是削弱它。

如果特朗普拒绝领导，国会会介入吗？

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中期选举前没有时间采取实质性行动。但如果人工智能成为竞选中的热门议题，它很可能会影响明年掌控参众两院的政党的立法议程。如果共和党因为特朗普拒绝倾听选民意见而惨败，他们或许会更有动力与总统决裂。

但他们将自求多福。

“我是骗局揭穿者，我现在要揭穿另一个骗局——人工智能将统治、吞噬和毁灭世界，机器人将进军我们的城市，把我们都消灭掉！”特朗普周一在Truth Social上写道。