Obama says the government should ‘act fast’ and regulate AI

(Gray News) - Former President Barack Obama said that the government should “act fast” and regulate artificial intelligence.

Obama was discussing artificial intelligence at Colgate University on Friday and criticized the Trump administration’s dismissal of concerns over rapid AI development.

“Government has to be regulating this. I heard one of Donald Trump’s main advisers on this make the argument that the market will take care of it. These companies will solve the safety issues because they have every incentive to do so. If it turns out to be dangerous, people will just sue them, and they’re worried about financial liability. That’s not how we treat airlines or drug companies, food companies,” Obama said.

Obama encouraged voters to pay attention to what plans candidates have for AI.

“If somebody does not have a serious plan for how to deal with this, then they’re not meeting the moment and you should probably look for somebody else,” he said.

Earlier this month, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said he thought the industry needed to reduce the speed of its work, cautioning that a swarm of AI agents might be able to take over the internet in six months to a year unless companies devoted more time to putting safeguards in place.

Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, also said that companies should start coordinating on AI safety without waiting for the government to introduce legislation.