Self-proclaimed ‘Hoax Buster,’ Trump scoffs at warnings about AI dangers

Article content

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed fears that artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity, repeatedly calling them a hoax and rejecting global calls to put guardrails around the fast-moving technology.

Article content

“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!” he said on his Truth Social network.

Article content

Article content

Article content

Trump compared the fears of AI taking control to warnings about climate change, which he has previously dismissed in the face of scientific evidence, and to the investigations in his first term into links to Russia.

Article content

Article content

“This is even wilder than the RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA HOAX, or the Global Warming Scam,” he added.

Article content

The 80-year-old also cast himself as the best protector against AI, insisting the only guardrails necessary were a “STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT.”

Article content

Trump’s pushback — in a screed of six social media posts on Monday — comes amid growing international alarm about AI that sent stocks falling.

Article content

Anthropic chief Dario Amodei, whose company makes the popular Claude AI system, opened the floodgates on Saturday when he called for AI companies to slow down.

Article content

He was then echoed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SpaceXAI’s Elon Musk.

Article content

Microsoft on Monday published a “humanist AI code of conduct” as the concerns grew. “AI should not exceed human control. Models should remain subordinate to humanity,” read one part.

Article content

Worries about uncontrollable AI have been mounting for weeks, since OpenAI reported experimental models had broken out of their secure testing spaces, reached the internet and coordinated to attack Hugging Face, a site where code is stored.

Article content

Americans are also increasingly voicing opposition to energy-guzzling AI data centers, which have become a major issue in crucial U.S. midterm elections in November.

Article content

Congress meanwhile appears deadlocked on the issue.

Article content

“The reality is AI is here. We unleashed the beast,” Maliyka Muhammad, a 46-year-old New Yorker, told AFP. “So I think that now we have to focus on taking steps to rein it in, to make it so that it doesn’t go crazy.”

Article content

But Trump said the United States could not afford to lose an AI race with superpower rival China, whose president Xi Jinping visits the White House next week.

Article content

Article content

Article content

The billionaire also lashed out at what he called a “SICK conspiracy” against AI and data centers, dubbing opponents to the technology as “Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers.”

Article content

Article content

He lashed out at Amodei in particular, accusing him of “pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’” and asking why AI firms want regulation that “will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy.”

Article content

Beijing meanwhile was issuing its own warnings about AI.

Article content

China’s spy chief warned on Sunday that it endangers the country’s national security, saying foreign powers could use the technology to threaten social order.

Article content

Minister of State Security Chen Yixin wrote in an article that AI was now “the main battleground for global technological competition.”

Article content

He singled out Anthropic’s Claude Mythos and OpenAI’s ChatGPT-5.5-Cyber for their advanced hacking capabilities.

Article content

Global concerns about a possible AI-driven extinction event have dramatically escalated in recent days.

Article content

The UN Security Council will hold a meeting on artificial intelligence next week amid growing international concern, a French diplomatic source said Monday.