Trump dismisses AI extinction risks as more than a dozen OpenAI, Anthropic insiders call for a slowdown

U.S. President Donald Trump has dismissed warnings that AI could pose an existential threat to humanity, after a wave of insiders at frontier labs Anthropic and OpenAI stepped up public warnings of risks from the technology.

When asked if he had concerns about AI leading to human extinction, Trump said, "No, I don't have any."

"I have concerns that if we don't win AI, we're going to be put in a very bad position," the president told reporters Thursday. "We are leading China right now by a pretty good period, I would say a year, which is, you know, considered a lot."

The U.S. and China are locked in a battle for AI supremacy, with tensions ratcheting up as Chinese AI models have become more advanced and their adoption grows across the globe.

Trump's comments came after a number of researchers at frontier AI labs, including OpenAI and Anthropic, sounded the alarm over the rapid pace of development of the tech.

Growing concerns

Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon said Tuesday that he was quitting the company over concerns that Anthropic and rival OpenAI are "gambling with our lives."

He added that those building AI believed that it could "kill us all by the end of the decade" — a view which has since been echoed by other employees at the labs.