Trump unexpectedly calls Nvidia CEO to defend AI during industry event, gets put on speakerphone

President Donald Trump on Monday called Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to defend artificial intelligence amid AI researchers who say it poses a significant threat to the human race. 

The call happened to come in during an industry summit, and with the president's permission, Huang put the call on speakerphone, NBC reported. 

“The robots will not be taking over. The AI will not be taking over the rest of the world. The whole thing is a hoax,” Trump said, adding that critics are “just playing right into the hands of a lot of people that don’t want to see it happen. That could be political people, that could also be China.”

A video of the incident was posted on X. Trump acknowledged that there are risks, saying that people "have to be careful." But, he argued that data centers are making people and states wealthy. 

“It’s the oil of the next 20, 25 years, it’s bigger than the internet and AI, you know, much more so,” he said. 

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, said in an essay published on Saturday that he's become convinced that we must "slow the pace" of the development of artificial intelligence systems. He proposed a three-step plan to balance the rate of development that aims to ensure safety while still achieving the benefits of the technology.