Washington- The president donald trump Thursday canceled a signing ceremony for a new order on artificial intelligence (AI) because he worries it could overshadow the United States’ advantage in AI technology.
Trump said he was postponing the signing because he didn’t like what he saw in the text of the order. He announced the change hours before the event took place in the Oval Office.
“We’re leading China, we’re leading everyone, and I don’t want to do anything that gets in the way of that leadership,” Trump told reporters at an unrelated event in the Oval Office.
The demand for some form of government action to examine the most powerful AI systems follows growing concern in the banking sector and other institutions about advances in AI’s ability to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world’s software.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell called an urgent meeting with the CEOs of the Federal Reserve in April. Wall Street to warn them of the cybersecurity risks posed by Anthropic’s AI model, Claude Mythos.
The meeting, called urgently at the headquarters of the Treasury Departmentwas intended to ensure that banks were aware of the risks associated with the models, Bessent told CNBC’s “Invest in America Forum” in Washington in April. “This new Anthropic model is very powerful,” he said. “Some banks are doing a better job on cybersecurity than others, and we want to have the ability to convene them and talk about what the best practices are and where they should be going.”.
That led some allies of the Republican president to propose better methods for putting those AI tools in the hands of trusted cybersecurity experts.
But an approach that could be perceived as government control of AI business models would have signaled a significant shift in Trump’s promises as he enters his second term in office. White House to undo AI safety regulations put in place by the Democratic president Joe Biden.