With Donald Trump the definitive winner of the 2024 election, artificial intelligence bros seem equal parts stoked and terrified about the technology reaching human-level intelligence — or beyond — under his second presidency.
Despite the president-elect’s confused-sounding declaration that “super-duper AI” is “alarming and scary” during a podcast appearance over the summer, many believe that with his running mate JD Vance and money man Elon Musk at the helm of AI policy, loosened regulations could lead to artificial general intelligence (AGI) being ushered in during Trump’s second term.
Whether that’s good, bad, or neutral depends on the perspective of the commentator.
“By many estimates,” tweeted OpenAI staffer Steven Heidel cryptically, “Trump will be the AGI president.”
Over on Reddit, things seemed a lot more black-and-white, as AI bros lamented the idea of the world-changing tech emerging under the tenure of a politician motivated with little understanding of technical topics and who’s largely motivated by grievances, power and score-settling.
“There’s a nonzero chance that AGI will happen during what is increasingly looking to be Trump’s second term as President,” a user posted on r/Singularity, seemingly before Kamala Harris conceded. “If ever there was a combination of circumstances that screamed Apocalypse in giant neon letters this is it.”
“Dudes like Elon and [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] will have a say in AGI if it’s achieved under Trump,” another responded. “There is no real good way to spin this. [I’d] rather have an uncontrolled AGI.”
As yet another user pointed out, Vance being a heartbeat away from the presidency is all the more worrisome given that he’s boosted by notorious ideologue Peter Thiel, who recently told a crowd at Cambridge University that he’s more concerned about government regulation of any imminent AGI than the technology itself.
Notably, Trump has already declared that he’s planning to repeal outgoing President Joe Biden’s restrictions on AI — making the prospect of the tech running amok under his tenure all the more real.
This entire prospect hinges, of course, on AGI actually coming about during the next four-odd years — a timeline that even Thiel would likely reject based on his own predictions of the technology becoming “super dominant” in a few decades.
But if it does, as another user noted in a since-deleted post on r/Singularity, Trump’s second term may well “shift the [artificial superintelligence] future into [a] dystopia, not a utopia.”
More on AI: Trump Planning to Unleash Artificial Intelligence by Repealing Restrictions
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