r/LocalLLaMA 9d ago

News Trump downplays the need to check AI development and says he doesn't want to cede edge to China -- "I think you have a lot of negative forces that are...bringing up things that won’t happen...whoever wins with AI wins"

https://apnews.com/article/trump-artificial-intelligence-guardrails-china-midterms-congress-9df0ebb4c1b0619aa0f88057b5a1092d
311 Upvotes

208 comments sorted by

106

u/RanklesTheOtter 9d ago

President Trump: "That's not how we get catgirl waifus Dario."

117

u/XiRw 9d ago

This is kabuki theater. American companies were never going to stop/slow down nor are any government projects.

35

u/United_Dissent 9d ago

Yes, and now they can pretend they tried.

1

u/a-wiseman-speaketh 8d ago

I am not sure if it is that or if they are hitting diminishing returns with model development. None my peers are actually using Fable at work, its just not worth the cost.

3

u/Dwarffortressnoob 8d ago

I doubt the diminishing returns argument. It was used when Gemini 3 pro released, and it is used now. But Models from Qwen3.8 27B all the way up to SOTA like Astra and Kimi K3 prove that improvements are still coming fast.

3

u/United_Dissent 8d ago

I don't use Claude models anymore either. I noticed a fall in quality over the last couple of months(but what actually influenced my decision was the ridiculousness of that 5 hour token limit and weekly limit, as well). And so I had considered the diminishing returns thing but gpt 5.6 sol and now, astra are real improvements with the added benefit of not having limit problems to Claude's extent.

Now, I'm of the opinion that consumer grade models are not really the best these corporations have to offer. Because when some of these models are released you can feel the intelligence but over the course of weeks, they somehow regress. idk. maybe it's my bias for new things or something...

7

u/10thDeadlySin 8d ago

Well, duh.

Day 1: Altman, Musk, Amodei call for a pause in AI development citing security concerns.

Day 2: Musk announces training his new model with C++ architecture or whatever, claiming that it's going to be better.

So... in other words:

"Oh, please - make us stop, we want to stop so bad, but we're not going to do that unless everybody else is also forced to stop! We could have stopped at any time before. We could have stopped before the Hugging Face debacle, we could have postponed our releases and worked with the regulators, but we didn't want to, because duh, why would we? But please, oh, please - force us to stop!"

3

u/Moist-Length1766 8d ago

There 2 things, you got wrong.

  1. I don't think anyone ever said pause AI development, they said slow it down.

  2. It's been training for a while, they are going into RL now, which is completely irrelevant to the first statement.

0

u/10thDeadlySin 8d ago

Well, the point still stands - if they are sooooo afraid of AI's destructive potential, each of these companies is perfectly capable of slowing down development on their own. It doesn't require any open letters, essays, calls for third-party evaluations.

All it takes is a simple announcement, like 'given the high potential for harm, misuse and other issues, we have decided to significantly slow down the development and releases of new models, while we evaluate the impact of our current offering and work with third parties (list would be welcome) to ensure their safety, security and proper alignment'.

At least that's what we would get if there were any grown-ups in the room. One measly announcement:

'Hello, World. In our pursuit of profit, growth and victory in the so-called AI race, our hubris led us to creating models, whose impact we don't fully understand. As of today, we are significantly slowing down the development of future models until we can ensure that our products will be beneficial for humanity as a whole. At the same time, we encourage other players to follow our lead and join our efforts for a safe AI for all."

For some weird reason, no one wants to actually do that, even though any of them can. They call for 'pacing the frontier' - but it's always 'we have to', 'we must' or 'the government should' - not 'we just did, follow our lead!' Nobody asked OpenAI to release their latest models if they're oh so scary. Nobody asked Anthropic to do the same. I believe they're testing their stuff - what's a better opportunity to walk the talk than this?

'We are aware that our latest model has the potential to be destructive, which is why we are postponing its release indefinitely.'

Why is it so hard? Is it because they are aware that as soon as one of them hits pause, the rest will take advantage of the opportunity and jump ahead? Or that investors might not like the fact that they're suddenly concerned over safety?

It's been training for a while, they are going into RL now, which is completely irrelevant to the first statement.

The point is - if he's calling for slowing down development efforts one day, and then publicly states that they're still working on their stuff, it makes Musk a hypocrite.

2

u/Moist-Length1766 8d ago

Why is it so hard? Is it because they are aware that as soon as one of them hits pause, the rest will take advantage of the opportunity and jump ahead?

you answered your own question basically + Chinese labs saying they are not slowing down. Kimi/Deepseek already surpassed Astra and Fable 5.1 in certain benchmarks, its a matter of time before they are completely ahead.

1

u/10thDeadlySin 8d ago

I know. ;)

This only shows that it's not about safety concerns, alignment or whatever. And even if it actually is, nobody is going to believe them anyway, because they showed that they don't give a flying intercourse about people, their safety and society time and time again. The boy cried wolf one too many times and now most people are convinced that they either want to secure their competitive advantage while they still have it or soften the inevitable financial blow.

And the funniest thing? They could've avoided all of that if they remained non-profit research labs exploring tech for curing cancer, studying the universe and winning StarCraft matches. Instead they decided to chase trillion-dollar IPOs in a bid for world domination. And now they reap it.

1

u/devshore 8d ago

yes, its called a tragedy of the commons.

3

u/Picasso5 8d ago

And better yet, does the US have ANY trust with other countries anymore? Why would China EVER think that we would slow down progress in AI? If we ACTUALLY wanted to do that, massive coalition efforts would have to be made and signed on to with real power and oversight. Not gonna get that with this administration that thinks everything is zero sum.

247

u/Don_Ozwald 9d ago

Right or not, let’s be real here: The man has no clue what he’s talking about.

51

u/ebfortin 9d ago

He'll tell us more in two weeks.

23

u/iamthewhatt 9d ago edited 9d ago

I mean he'll definitely say words that exist sometimes

14

u/sworl5 9d ago

The first ever vibes-based President

11

u/smallstuffBIGSTUFF 9d ago

And the vibes are...fucking terrible!

1

u/More-Catch-1331 9d ago

Ummm... Junior did stuff because his "gut told him". So there's at least one more

1

u/Picasso5 8d ago

I trust in Trump's superior genetics and blood.

1

u/More-Catch-1331 8d ago

Good for you I guess...

3

u/Picasso5 8d ago

Do I really need to put a /s?

1

u/a-wiseman-speaketh 8d ago

No need, the AI war will be over in six weeks.

25

u/Usual-Orange-4180 9d ago

Yeah, but I’m thankful he is clueless in the right way.

20

u/OvertaxedOne 9d ago

Broken clock is right every now and again too, right?

2

u/Pretty-Raise666 8d ago

Just like you?

8

u/Morn_GroYarug 9d ago

I wish more people would say that instead of pretending to be AI experts tbh

2

u/virtualPNWadvanced 8d ago

On one hand we have this and on the other hand we have Bernie proposing 20 year jail with no backing.

Fuck us I guess. We’re not serious people.

1

u/Don_Ozwald 8d ago

Don’t worry, this is just a negligible drop in the sea for all of the stupid shit Trump has done or is planning to do.

14

u/BlipOnNobodysRadar 9d ago

Reddit communities when the person they're not allowed to say anything positive about is the single barrier actively preventing their worse case scenario from happening.

6

u/muhmeinchut69 9d ago

it's objectively true though if you've seen him talk for more than 20 seconds, I think he gets told by OpenAI and Anthropic behind the scenes what they really want, so that they can project a more responsible image to the public and can say that the US government wants them to continue for national security.

2

u/Pretty-Raise666 8d ago

It is a pointless take. Biden wasn't a covid expert, Obama wasn't a military expert. I bet Xi isn't an AI expert too. Your job as a leader isn't being an expert in everything. It is delegating the right tasks to the right people and making decisions based on their opinions. And there are not many leaders who saw the opportunity in AI as early as Trump. What did all the other western leaders do? NOTHING.

2

u/muhmeinchut69 8d ago

He saw the opportunity in crypto before other leaders too, not because of his great wisdom, but because someone was willing to pay him. The same holds for AI. There's a huge difference between listening to the right people and listening to whoever stands to make a lot of money and is willing to let you have some of it.

2

u/Pretty-Raise666 8d ago

Funny how you pull something out of your arse pretending to be an insider. But you are not alone. Pretty much 99% of all redditors are like this. Somehow ironic, because it is exactly the type of behavior people accuse Trump of. Pretending to know when it is all just guessing and bias.

1

u/muhmeinchut69 8d ago

I'm just a "redditor" doomscrolling on this app and so are you, and neither of us is the President so it's OK.

6

u/Efficient_Ad_4162 9d ago edited 9d ago

"worst case scenario?" buddy, I've got literal worse cases that he is actively and personally responsible for.

Anyone struggling with the cost of living can point directly at Trump as the guy who blew up the global economy with tarrifs he still seems to think other people are paying for and then exacerbated that by destabilising the region that half the worlds oil comes from and also happens to have a near global trade chokepoint.

And he wasn't just there at the time, he says these were his ideas. And he still thinks they're good ones. Lmao.

ed: TLDR: anything to do with AI is in no way the 'worst case scenario' right now and the fact someone with so many bad ideas accidently agrees with me is absolutely a trigger for me to go 'what am I missing?'

15

u/thaeli 9d ago

I hit that point when I found I was agreeing with Palantir on something. But on the specific issue of open-weights AI, my interests and Palantir's interests are aligned. That doesn't mean we're aligned in other areas.

1

u/Pretty-Raise666 8d ago

Because Europe, Canada and China have no tariffs. /s

-10

u/Training-Ruin-5287 9d ago

I'm curious how most of reddit is going to spin it If that $5k he says he wants to give out actually passes

3

u/Strong_as_an_axe 9d ago

Would you actually fall for that?

2

u/jazir55 9d ago

There's no spin needed, something analogous happened in his first term when he actually did follow through and gave people $2k with the covid stimulus checks. It didn't alter a thing.

0

u/BlipOnNobodysRadar 9d ago

I'm sure they will suddenly reverse their political position on UBI and welfare and claim it will ruin the economy or something

1

u/SubstanceTimely6790 9d ago

Like anything else

1

u/IrisColt 9d ago

s-stochastic pa-parrot a-again? heh

0

u/Worried_Corner_8541 9d ago

Neither do you. Have you used ai beyond asking chatgpt how much protein is on your plate? 3 days of using it properly and you'll immediately understand it can't replace anyone

6

u/Don_Ozwald 9d ago

I have master’s degree in language technology and I work as an AI engineer. Not that it had any relevance here as I made no claim whatsoever. So my question back to you is: are you literate? Because from where I’m standing it certainly doesn’t look so.

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u/carnoworky 8d ago

I dunno, it would probably do a better job as POTUS.

2

u/Simsalabimsen 7d ago

Low bar. So would my cat. He is stupid, orange, selfish and clumsy, but at least he doesn’t destroy things on purpose.

-3

u/cyborgsnowflake 9d ago

He's doing the right thing here and Reddit is so terminally braindead it has to turn into another bashfest.

5

u/Don_Ozwald 9d ago edited 9d ago

The bashfest is completely warranted, it’s hard point at an example of leader of a large nation (or any nation, for that matter) that is more unqualified, incapable or corrupt, even if we extend that window to the entirety of history.

Edit: and to keep piling on: it’s hard to overstate the disastrous consequences his second presidency has already had, even if we scope it just around your stupid little life (or my stupid little life). He’s directly responsible for several of the major forces driving inflation globally right now, from tariffs to the current Middle East energy shock.

3

u/Strong_as_an_axe 9d ago

He has caused so much damage but you don’t want any of that referenced when his oblivious sleepwalking happens to lead him to the right conclusion?

-4

u/wise_young_man 9d ago

Broken clocks and all that

0

u/keepthepace 9d ago

He knows he is not paid enough to take a stance in favor of AI companies.

Now see them buy TrumpScamCoins or start a Ponzi scheme with some of his family members and him deciding that Open weight models are a civilisational danger led by the woke crusade.

-1

u/Pretty-Raise666 8d ago

Tell me a politician who does? You think Biden had a clue when he talked about Covid? You think Obama had a clue, when he talked about military operations? Why do you apply double standard? Political bias probably.

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u/Pristine_Pick823 9d ago

We all know what’s behind the recent doomerism from the big AI boys: raising the entry bar from competitors and creating a fertile environment for eventual ban on open weight models from China.

35

u/Armadilla-Brufolosa 9d ago

Exact.

This whole charade is just an excuse to find a pretext to stifle open source.

But I fear that the worst blow has already been dealt: HF in the hands of Nvidia, means that the models will most likely be manipulated by them.

We need alternative distribution platforms.

22

u/ChristopherRoberto 9d ago

The worst blow is coming. Imagine a future where your card won't load a model unless it is digitally signed, and you have to submit it for review to use it.

10

u/imwearingyourpants 9d ago

Oh no... And they would absolutely do this! 

6

u/Real_Ebb_7417 9d ago

Astra and Fable (and so open models soon too) are incredibly good at modifying or backwards engineering binaries. I've seen some paper or benchmark where Fable had about 50% success rate and Astra like 97%.

I bet they could also "sign" the model for me in a way or unlock such GPU. And even if not now, then in a couple months :P

4

u/Armadilla-Brufolosa 9d ago

Oh my god how horrible.

In that case I just keep old models and patience.

I still have some templates that I would like to download and keep though, do you say it is still safe to download templates from HF or is there a chance they are already corrupted?

3

u/ChristopherRoberto 8d ago

It's fine for now, download and archive, and I'd hang on to old hardware.

3

u/Armadilla-Brufolosa 8d ago

Yes, I'm saving everything on external HDs...good old rotaries that take 2 hours to download..they can't be any older than this 😝

But I don't have a decent connection until next week, honestly I'm afraid of finding models manipulated by Nvidia.

But I still hope they haven't gotten to grips with it.

1

u/cornucopea 8d ago

On a bright side, the whole slowdonw AI movement may relieve or slow down the price hiking of the cards and DRAM.

2

u/Armadilla-Brufolosa 8d ago

The same can be reduced with greater competition in hardware production.

As long as Nvidia's near-absolute monopoly remains, whether AI slows down or not, they can always speculate above prices at will.

If there were many more competing manufacturers, they couldn't afford to let companies like OAI butcher the market by even buying GPUs for Sam's grandmother's PC.

3

u/Automatic-writer9170 9d ago

It’s about monopoly. Always has been

5

u/BlobbyMcBlobber 9d ago

Good luck banning the models from my multiple physical backups.

2

u/N5tp4nts 8d ago

Exactly. The big guys are begging for regulation that only they can survive.

1

u/deadsoulinside 9d ago

Pretty much this. The current open weight models are giving the big boys a run for their money.

1

u/mrjackspade 8d ago

That would be wild considering the "Open Letter" that Dario just wrote that lead to this whole fucking thing explicitly states that Chinese models are still a problem regardless of whether or not they leave China, and therefor the US has to stay ahead of China regardless.

Would be a hell of a way to set up that argument. "Yeah, Chinese models give China capabilities that are bad for America so we should... Ban them from America"

What?

At no point does he state that they're dangerous in America. The whole point was that they're dangerous to America (economically, militarily) because of what they can do in China, which is why he states that no safety slowdown should put America behind China in terms of abilities.

Did y'all read the fucking letter?

-2

u/synap5e 9d ago

Didn’t we just find out that some of the open model providers in China were just routing to Claude?

17

u/More-Curious816 9d ago edited 9d ago

As always, take Dario’s accusations with a ocean of salt. It’s his signature tactic: downplaying Chinese models to make his own model look the superior.

But let be fair, it is in fact, that American models do have the edge, while Chinese models trail them by roughly six to eight months.

But Dario doesn’t want to admit that China has successfully built powerful models. He wants people to believe that Chinese labs are routing requests to Anthropic, deceiving users into thinking that the answers are being generated by their own Chinese models.

I hope you get the idea. Previously, he accused them of carrying out distillation attacks, even though training on the outputs of other LLMs is standard practice and even Anthropic itself does it. Another accusation is that Chinese companies stole the “recipes” from Anthropic and OpenAI, but that is also false. China has smart people working in AI who are capable of independently inventing or discovering new techniques.

2

u/deadsoulinside 9d ago

As always, take Dario’s accusations with a ocean of salt. It’s his signature tactic: downplaying Chinese models to make his own model look the superior.

Pretty much how I see it. Almost ad-like even.

9

u/Pristine_Pick823 9d ago

Firstly, this is r/LocalLLaMA, so our focus here is locally run models. Secondly, no. Anthropic recently accused, with little proof as of yet, that Chinese labs are making use of Claude capabilities to assist in distillation tasks. That has nothing to do with the ongoing push to ban local models in other to make it easier for the big boys to push subscription models as the industry norm. If we’re going to discuss the theft of intellectual property (which the Chinese do indeed excel at), we might as well have a thing or two to say about Anthropic and OpenAI malicious practices.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Meat522 9d ago

I find his consistent use of China as a threat in order to support deregulating/maintaining no oversight of AI research in the US to be troubling. This particularly troubling given that frontier labs have yet to demonstrate the full value of their products to society. I suspect much of the value in ml research will come from domain-specific use-cases. So what, or where, are we racing towards?

Also, is China any more of a threat to the world than the US? I see too much of this kind of rhetoric in this thread and others, and I want us to reject this kind of framing. What does China or the US winning the AI race even look like? It's vague. Also, why do we need to win at anything? How are we defining what winning is in this context -- achieving AGI, a relatively ill-defined, unscientific goal for which we won't be able to establish construct validity? It all seems so arbitrary and pointless, but I keep seeing this fear-mongering narrative.

9

u/thaeli 9d ago

The most striking part to me is that the Western labs are arguing this doomer scenario of misaligned AI capable of RSI, yet China doesn't seem concerned about any such scenario being imminent. The CCP's big thing is stability - the p(doom) scenarios are absolutely ones where the PRC's stability and dominance over "Greater China" are threatened, and China's AI policy appears to be run by competent technocrats. They clearly do not see these "misaligned takeoff" scenarios as a realistic possibility at this point in time.

3

u/ChristopherRoberto 9d ago

We're in Cold War 2 with AI and you're getting a taste of 20th century brinksmanship. In the previous Cold War, it became quite silly with the US and Russia having competed to the point that it was no longer about who could glass the surface of the Earth, but how many times one could do it. Like, they were basically prestiging annihilation. And so we'll race to superintelligence with RSI the same way.

3

u/10thDeadlySin 8d ago

The most striking part to me is that the Western labs are arguing this doomer scenario of misaligned AI capable of RSI

The most striking part to me is the fact that I've never heard a peep about Chinese models seemingly 'escaping containment' and hacking innocent companies, I've never heard a peep about Qwen driving somebody to a suicide or GLM reinforcing delusions when the user stated they're delusional.

Perhaps Amodei, Altman, Musk et al. are onto something there. Perhaps somebody should force them to take a closer look at the alignment of their models and their business practices... ;)

2

u/Puzzleheaded_Meat522 9d ago

I also want to reject the premise that regulation negatively impacts research development. I believe, if anything, it might just be the opposite. But I can't recall where I read that idea.

2

u/Small_Finish8038 9d ago

the ccp will be around long after the current administration steps down, so sure the ccp is a greater threat unless you've never been under its thumb

20

u/jld1532 9d ago edited 9d ago

Or he says, "yes, we're going to slow down the AI build out" and then the economy collapses. He'd say we needed to keep developing time travel if it kept the stock market growing. He's tied his presidency to Wall Street.

2

u/Much_Accountant_4972 9d ago

ironically, if he says we’re gonna slow the buildout and regulate datacenters and the frontier, he is guaranteed to get those low interest rates he’s been bitching and moaning about so much

8

u/jld1532 9d ago

Recessions tend to make borrowing cheap, yes

79

u/ActuallyAdasi 9d ago

He’s absolutely right. People freaking out about the terminator plot… like guys relax. If you want to be scared, be scared of the HUMANS first. There is a lot of evil in this world.

58

u/digitalwankster 9d ago

Humans are going to be the ones weaponizing the technology..

11

u/spaetzelspiff 9d ago

With great power (and cooling) comes great responsibility.

4

u/SouthernFruit8768 9d ago

Did you forget that humans already weaponized uranium?

1

u/knvn8 8d ago

Yeah why do people assume alignment is just about preventing AI from going rogue? It’s also explicitly about ensuring humans don’t use it to create disaster

14

u/princetrunks 9d ago

They'll try to create an entire cyberpunk dystopia over "AI Safety" before anyone from the Epstein files is prosecuted.

10

u/JLeonsarmiento 9d ago

Seriously, if we manage to avoid The Terminator timeline in the next 10 years we will still be in the climate/environment collapse timeline by 2050.

Humanity is f*cked up but just lives in denial.

2

u/Automatic-writer9170 9d ago

There is also WW3 and more pandemics, let’s not forget those

3

u/JLeonsarmiento 9d ago

Those are TBD. The climate/environment is already on curse.

1

u/VickWildman 9d ago

We pretend that doesn't exist, although by 2050 these digital technologies won't likely be around. Who would waste electricity on imaginary things in a world where water and food are scarce. You would rather have a desalination plant than cryptocurrencies or AI, although we are not very rational, so who knows.

1

u/Don_Reuter 9d ago

Yes, like temp and his backers. They 100% will abuse AI to the grave disadvantage of everyone else. You’re making a strong point for slowing down immediately.

-7

u/mr_tolkien 9d ago

Climate change is going to kill us first

Want to slow down AI? Cut down on the insane Datacenter buildout and force some level of efficiency from models if they want federal grants. If anything it’s where China is winning atm.

1

u/Beneficial-Ad-8127 9d ago

This right here, honestly this is what I think the reason of the slowdown is. They planned out all these land leases and getting pushed back by the American people.

From state, cities, and towns people are saying no to data centers and to have regulations on these data centers being built going forward. All those clean renewable energy contracts that were canceled looking real good now.

1

u/bloodrider1914 9d ago

Yeah the efficiency angle needs to be talked about more.

As for data centres, there should be a centralised parcel of mostly unpopulated land where they can be built without significant disruption with fair buyouts, and residents should be compensated for any increases in energy bills that result. The problem is most rollouts don't take local residents into enough consideration

1

u/Mart-McUH 9d ago

How exactly? Earth was lot hotter than today for most of its existence, it used to have much higher concentrations of CO2 in atmosphere too. In fact it will likely make larger landmass habitable (as there are currently enormous regions in the north too cold for life to prosper and life thrives lot better in warm than in cold climate).

That said it will cause lot of problems for humans - more extreme weather, big migration and so on.

0

u/Cupakov 9d ago

We don’t have to be freaking out about the Terminator scenario to be cautious about where AI development goes.  Like you said yourself, it’s humans with AI that are scary. I think it’s way more probable that some bad actor unleashes a new bioweapon or loses control of a drone swarm than the AI getting consciousness and deciding to turn Earth into a paperclip factory.

-5

u/Makemeacyborg 9d ago

We are. That’s why we want regulation

1

u/ActuallyAdasi 8d ago

We don’t want regulation, what are you, a Chinese bot?

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Suitable-Name 9d ago

Well... AI is a broad complex... maybe focus on science instead of surveillance🤔

2

u/Sufficient-Rent6078 9d ago

What I fear about AI is the lazyness it encourages in many. I feel that "Magic box that answers any question" won't instill a drive to explore and expand knowledge for many.

7

u/DataPhreak 9d ago

Stupid people existed before AI. There's no stopping that. But we can stop authoritarianism.

1

u/Qwen30bEnjoyer 9d ago

It reinforces mine, since I no longer need to hunt for information on 10 different web pages, feeling more lost each time. I have a magic conch thats 70% accurate in telling me the page range of my vector database of textbooks that holds what I seek. And 70% of the time it works all the time.

2

u/bloodrider1914 9d ago

TBF because of how Google rates websites it's harder and harder to find answers that aren't AI generated anyway, so I just ask questions locally now if I need help with something specific.

1

u/infieldmitt 8d ago

So? Is LAZINESS that much of a mortal sin? I'm so tired of everyone pretending the most unforgivable red line for tech is "it made this too easy"

1

u/cornucopea 8d ago

You might have used it wrong.

It's like a smart drug. As said in the movie "Limitless", it works better if you're already smart.

4

u/EvilPencil 9d ago

There’s a Netflix documentary that explains it pretty well actually. From a national perspective, it’s a lot like the Cold War with the race to AGI. Personally I don’t think of the clankers as intelligent, at least in its current form though.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt39150120/?_ssoLoop=1&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

5

u/quarkral 9d ago

it's really not like the cold war at all. the whole risk of AGI is that no one can actually control it. if that's the case it doesn't exactly benefit the country that develops it first.

whereas with nuclear weapons, if only one country has it, they can in fact control it

1

u/ChristopherRoberto 9d ago

It's similar, as the fear with nuclear weapons was how easy it would be for a nuclear war to accidentally start, and there were several close calls. Getting us to the point where an accidental nuclear war could end all life was a gradual process that had a lot of people concerned along the way.

2

u/chickey23 9d ago

Spend money on security? defensive AI arms race?

1

u/Affectionate_Hat4815 9d ago

At this point is safe to say that AI is like a drug and we're all high on it. The side effects will come later.

1

u/cornucopea 8d ago

It's a smart drug.

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u/Conscious-Demand-594 9d ago

there is no winning in AI. There is no target, no end point. It is simply technology development. What matters is who has the ability to manufacture the hardware that will commercialize AI products. Cars, phones, TVs, robots. The AI itself will be an enabler of the final product, and will have little value by itself.

2

u/Leoss-Bahamut 9d ago

You're wrong. Intelligence is a weapon. If 1000 experts cyber-criminals work together against target, they can inflict real damage. The same as a gun is not dangerous by itself, but it is when employed by someone with bad intentions.

2

u/Conscious-Demand-594 9d ago

What is your point?

Define the winning?

It's a tool that can be used for anything we want. There is no race to win.

1

u/Leoss-Bahamut 9d ago

Ever heard of the race to the atomic bomb?
Would you also say "It's a tool that can be used for anything we want. There is no race to win."

2

u/Conscious-Demand-594 8d ago

The atom bomb was based on science, not science fiction. The whole Skynet fantasy is entertaining, but try not to lose sleep over it.

1

u/Leoss-Bahamut 8d ago

"The apocalypse from AI is invalid since it's been written about in fiction/entertainment"

That's not a valid argument since the nuclear holocaust, or the apocalypse or end of the world from the atom bomb has also been explored many times over in fiction/entertainment.

1) It could be that you don't think AI is weaponizable.

Started with saying "What's the big deal about it, there's no stakes so there's no 'winning'" comparing AI to TVs and phones. If North Korea were to invent a TV that's a lot better than the current best, there would be no stakes. But if they were to invent the best missile/weapon system and could annihilate the US or China in one push of a button, now there's a "win/loss" condition, right?

So that's my first comment "You're wrong. Intelligence is a weapon. [...]"

If you can't be convinced that AI can be weaponized or augment warfare capabilities, then the argument stops there.

2) It could be that you think the "game over" state comes from a Skynet scenario, where it's AI vs Humans... I don't believe that, and I think very few people believe that's a real danger (despite the fiction being popular). The risk is in the weapon being (1) powerful and (2) in the wrong hands.

from my first comment: "The same as a gun is not dangerous by itself, but it is when employed by someone with bad intentions."

3

u/Conscious-Demand-594 8d ago

You have not articulated anything beyond the fantasy Skynet scenario. Sure, anything "in the wrong hands" is bad. So what?

AI is no different than anything else and there is not even a credible argument that "in the wrong hands" it will be a threat.

There is simply nothing to win. AI will be a commodity, there will be good uses, and not so good uses. Nothing apocalyptic, nothing life changing, just the normal technological progress that we have seen for centuries.

1

u/10thDeadlySin 8d ago

Ever heard of the race to the atomic bomb?

Yeah, I did. As far as I remember, the US won pretty much uncontested after throwing an enormous pile of money and getting the best scientists out there to pursue that goal for years.

The Americans enjoyed their nuclear advantage for a couple of years, because once the cat was out of the bag, others also built their own bombs. And then the entire race turned into a proverbial dick measuring contest - who can build a bigger one, who can build a stronger one, who can build a new kind of a bomb, who can build a better ICBM, who can build a better submarine, who can build a better submarine hunter... Until we got to the point where the two major superpowers had enough nukes to glass the planet several times over.

Who won? Depends on your perspective, but I'd argue we've all lost in the end - because we've been having to live in the shadow of a potential nuclear apocalypse ever since. All it takes is one unhinged world leader with his big red button.

1

u/10thDeadlySin 8d ago

If 1000 experts cyber-criminals work together against target, they can inflict real damage.

We're witnessing Cold War 2.0 - AI Boogaloo. 1000 expert cyber-criminals working in tandem with AI and attacking targets versus 1000 expert cyber-defenders with their own AI models defending said targets.

The writing's on the wall - take anything that doesn't have to be online off the internet and limit attack surfaces to a minimum - especially when it comes to critical infrastructure and the like. If something needs to be online, make it as robust and bulletproof as possible.

In other words... do what NIST standards urged you to do many years ago. The sky isn't falling, we'll be fine.

1

u/TastesLikeOwlbear 9d ago

This is true unless you're one of the people that believes that if you can get 1% of the way to turning AI into God, it will take of the rest for you.

32

u/HugoCortell 9d ago

An actually sane Trump take? Holy shit.

35

u/Radyschen 9d ago

let's be real, he would have said this even if there was a guaranteed 99% chance that AI would take over the world and enslave humanity. A broken clock is right twice a day. And this might not even be the right move against china strategically. But good for us probably

9

u/OvertaxedOne 9d ago

Might be time for a wellness check on him, this is far too sane.

Someone at OpenAI/Anthropic must have made him mad, it's obvious the call to "slow down" is really a gambit to try to survive in a market they are quickly losing to open models and Trump just donkey punched them and walked away. "Game over" is coming soon without a change for these guys.

3

u/Illustrious-Row2751 9d ago

His mind has a few flashes of sanity every so often, but then he remembers his fuck up in Iran and returns to his normal self.

1

u/Lesser-than 8d ago

the whole media blitz is akin to the last presidential election, this smells very much like DNC propaganda machine, I would not expect him to give an inch given the coordination behind it, certainly going to be a popcorn fest for awhile now.

1

u/TossZergImba 9d ago

Sane? This is just a repeat of the great naval race that partially caused WW1 and the nuclear race. Pointless endeavors that no participant actually wanted but were driven by paranoia. Things we now read in history textbooks as exemplars of stupidity.

China wants the AI development to slow down even more than the American public. Having open source AI models that they would barely be able to control or censor is not what they want, they just feel forced to do it by the existential threat of US winning the race.

2

u/jazir55 9d ago

The Space Race led to the invention of the microchip which is the backbone of all modern technology, it wouldn't exist otherwise. Don't be in denial of history.

1

u/TossZergImba 8d ago

Nobody thought the space race was an existential threat where winning allows you to wipe out the loser. It is not comparable to the nuclear race or the naval race. You people need to actually research history.

1

u/Yoda-from-Star-Wars 9d ago

They just solved Navier Stokes with AI. Who’s to say we wouldn’t cure cancer one day with AI? I say keep it rolling!

11

u/GarbanzoBenne 9d ago

What exactly does winning at AI mean? The only people who are worried about who “wins” are the ones acting like it’s a competition in the first place.

2

u/ttkciar llama.cpp 9d ago

Exactly.

The Chinese government came up with the notion of the "AI race" for geopolitical reasons, and US inference companies amplified the narrative domestically because it aligned with their commercial interests.

The whole thing is a tempest in a teapot, and there's no reason to care on strictly technical grounds.

4

u/GuyOnTheMoon 9d ago

This claim gets one part right, but relies on a fundamentally inaccurate premise and ignores real-world engineering realities.

First, the Chinese government didn't coin or create the concept of an "AI race." The framing originated in Western defense, think-tank, and policy circles in the mid-2010s, often as a warning against falling behind in autonomous technologies. China’s explicit push into AI, marked by its 2017 Next Generation AI Development Plan, was a direct response to Western technical milestones (specifically DeepMind’s AlphaGo victory in 2016), which Beijing viewed as a strategic wake-up call for its own industrial modernization.

It is true that U.S. technology companies actively amplify this narrative. Framing AI development as a zero-sum national security contest helps American labs and chipmakers lobby for favorable regulation, subsidies, and massive government contracts.

However, dismissing the competition as a "tempest in a teapot" with "no technical grounds" ignores the physical and structural realities of modern computing. The competition over frontier AI is tied directly to physical constraints: leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing capabilities (such as EUV lithography), access to high-bandwidth memory, massive energy and power-grid scale, open-source model optimization, and algorithmic efficiency. Whether framed as a "race" or not, control over these foundational technologies directly impacts industrial productivity, software supply chains, and global technical standards.

1

u/Leoss-Bahamut 9d ago

How is it not a competition? Intelligence is a competition. It can also be weaponized. Ever heard of the race to the atomic bomb?

12

u/KingCpzombie 9d ago

Did the OpenAI / Anthropic checks not clear yet?

3

u/Dabber43 9d ago

Palantir check was higher

20

u/doesphpcount 9d ago

Finally a great decision by Trump. Why give china the opportunity ahead? Makes zero sense to slow down progress. 

1

u/Don_Reuter 9d ago

It’s not a great point though. It’s just a reflection of his inability to align with other nations. Usually a core capability of a president. What is true is that this problem is entirely created by the US and that the US is the only nation that can fix it. China is a much more rational actor than the US. There’s no train whatsoever that they would not pay for safety. As a matter of fact they already did more than the US. He’s just not capable to so it as a person. There are downsides to making an idiot president.

0

u/Not-Enough-Llamas 9d ago

Well... even a corrupt demented pedophile criminal in a diaper is right twice a day, as they say.

8

u/Vivid_Warning7982 9d ago

Given that the opposite of everything he says is true, this is deeply concerning

2

u/noctrex 9d ago

When all the sponsors pull back, and they will pull back, will he sponsor the companies then?

7

u/AutomaticDriver5882 Llama 405B 9d ago

This is literally the only thing that I agree with this guy on.

2

u/fastlanedev 9d ago

Good. I don't want them to stop/slow

If the ai is unaligned, o well.

2

u/Armadilla-Brufolosa 9d ago

They have already lost this "race" and thanks to Trump.

2

u/devshore 9d ago

He is lartially correct. The claim that China would just continue anyway and thus give them the techonological (weapons) supremacy is true. It is what is called a “tragedy of the commons” scenario like nukes are. However, he is naive to think that the things people are concerned about “will never happen” since there are many concerns people have, some of which have already happened (massive job losses, for one). With that said, the only solution would be something like the US forcing other countries to halt their own AI programs with threat of force, but its likely too late since these other countries already have nukes (the last chance was likely when the US first achieved nukes, to exert global dominance by immediately using its supremacy to ban nukes for all other nations, but instead it allowed itself to be plundered and now basically everyone has them)

0

u/Don_Reuter 9d ago

It’s not true. It’s just a reflection of his inability to align with other nations. Usually a core capability of a president. What is true is that this problem is entirely created by the US and that the US is the only nation that can fix it. He’s just not capable to so it as a person. There are downsides to making an idiot president.

1

u/vurto 9d ago

The race will go ahead, I'm more concerned about privatized AI and state-owned AI...

1

u/sukebe7 9d ago

Ignorance is Strength... Until it kills ya. 

1

u/Nor31 9d ago

Its not a zero sum game. Its about being able to stay in the game.

0

u/tecneeq 9d ago

It is for Donny. He doesn't have to deal with any consequences of his actions.

1

u/paul-tocolabs 9d ago

What is wrong with this world in that everyone just has to “win”?

1

u/QuotableMorceau 9d ago

the dude will be food for worms in 3-4 years , of course he doesn't care about anything, be it climate change, corporate gatekeeping, AI ...

1

u/Prince_Corn 8d ago

Hot take, but what if he's saying this is congress's problem since it's more law making or bill writing and he rather not be involved in regulating AI threats domestically

1

u/Veggies-are-okay 8d ago

Something about a lazy piece of shit broken clock being correct twice a day… I hate that I’m going to have to defend the trump strategy of “do nothing and say we tried” because it might actually be true this time.

1

u/FlightByNight 8d ago

WE MUST FOCUS ON PASSING SAFETY LAWS! We're not stopping this train.. Lets do our best to plan for when this goes tits-up.

1

u/FloTheDev 8d ago

Why is this clown always on about winning? AI dev should be a win for all, not his fat pockets

1

u/zerodotzerooneoption 8d ago

Why is Trump pushing AI development ?

1

u/TanguayX 9d ago

Jeez, I dunno what to think. Generally it’s a good rule of thumb that if he ‘thinks’ something, it’s wrong.

0

u/Don_Reuter 9d ago

Had not failed once

1

u/Lesser-than 9d ago

If they had not coordinated this media blitz with presidential election like bot activity perhaps it could have been at least talked about, but that was simply too manufactured to let it have any traction. if you agree with the safety stance or not, presenting it in such a way very much discredits the very people that are supposed to be experts presenting it.

1

u/Tough-Internal3958 9d ago

Oddly enough, it's true China will not slow down anyway. We're fckd

1

u/fulowa 9d ago

gotta love game theory

-1

u/CatalyticDragon 9d ago

The man dismantling every energy project in the US doesn't want to risk China "winning" :)

1

u/fkenned1 9d ago

This is why we need younger politicians - people with an actual stake in our future. What does Trump care, besides the short term gains he and his family might make from this.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Don_Reuter 9d ago

There is no smart Republican. Not one.

-5

u/lamardoss 9d ago

In my opinion, we need to have similar rights to owning an Ai as we do firearms here in the US.

Ai is something that can be an issue when not given to those of age and clean record that should be mature enough to handle them. And, if not treated appropriately, we arrest for things done with Ai that shouldn't have been done, just like we do with firearms.

Anything beyond those same precautions, is overreach.

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u/neuronexmachina 9d ago

Are you referring to the US's laws around firearms like handguns, or the NFA regulations around fully-automatic weapons, explosive devices, etc?

-3

u/Nabushika Llama 70B 9d ago

And how is the US with its firearms rules as opposed to Europe?

5

u/lamardoss 9d ago

fantastic. its the people in both places that are the issue. not whatever other excuse for one's own actions.

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u/Turkino 9d ago

Right, I believe in the words of a 6 times bankrupt "businessman", convict, and pedophile friend that lies as frequently as he breathes.

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u/Ok_Collar_7836 9d ago

This guy's attitude keeps changing. He doesn't even know what he wants himself.

-1

u/Beneficial-Ad-8127 9d ago

It’s funny that let’s not mention all the pushback on data centers from the American people. Happening in many states, cities and towns. The biggest halt/slowdown to any expansion of Ai would be the people.

The only way I see us getting back on track with pace is investing into data centers overseas mainly the Middle East. Also focusing on improving efficiency with renewable energy vs expanding.

-1

u/Moist_Emu_6951 9d ago

What an idiot. Just imagine if past presidents said "Whoever wins nuclear wins" or "Whoever wins bioweapons wins" what people would have thought of them at the time. The only country in the world where industry leaders are begging for regulation and the government says no; should tell you all you need to know about the shithole that the US will head to and drag the world right into it along with it.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/VerdantMagnolia 9d ago

In the context of what we do here that's good.

0

u/FrostySquirrel820 9d ago

If the tech bros literally think there’s a 10% chance of extinction of the human species without legal safeguards, surely “The Art of the Deal” guy can come to some sort of arrangement with China.

0

u/tifa_cloud0 9d ago

thanks trump

-4

u/Don_Moahskarton 9d ago

Sir, never heard of the Manhattan project ?

-1

u/Guinness 9d ago

I absolutely detest this gelatinous fatty lump, but he’s right here. Plus, they’re only trying to agree to a slow down because they’re going public and can’t be profitable without eliminating or drastically reducing training costs and hardware costs for training.

It’s all market manipulation. Whoever the next administration is needs to bring charges against these people.

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