On Wednesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) criticized President Donald Trump’s approach to AI regulation, questioning whether the technology’s richest and most influential leaders should be trusted to police an industry that could generate enormous fortunes.
Sanders Challenges Trump On AI Guardrails
Sanders took aim at Trump in a post on X after the president unveiled the White House Accord on Super Intelligence.
The senator shared a clip of Trump speaking to reporters about AI guardrails after the White House luncheon with technology executives. A reporter asked Trump why the public shouldn’t be concerned about AI and why the technology shouldn’t have guardrails.
“Because we have people that love our country and love the world a lot,” Trump said.
When the reporter responded that AI safety requires more than love, Trump pointed to his head and said the people involved are “the smartest people in the world.”
Sanders subsequently questioned that reasoning, arguing that relying on AI leaders to regulate themselves creates a potential conflict because many of them stand to benefit financially from the technology.
“You’re asking us to trust the people who stand to make trillions from AI to regulate themselves?” Sanders wrote.
Sanders Highlights Tech Billionaires’ Wealth
In a separate post, Sanders broadened his criticism by highlighting the fortunes of several prominent technology executives.
“Thank you, President Trump for bringing together the Oligarchs who run our country,” Sanders wrote, adding that the executives collectively hold more than $1.7 trillion in wealth.
Sanders listed Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) CEO Elon Musk at $920 billion, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos at $368 billion, Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg at $250 billion and Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang at $200 billion.
Sanders contrasted those fortunes with the economic struggles of working Americans, describing the concentration of wealth as “obscene.”
Trump’s AI Accord Sets Safeguards For Tech Giants
On Tuesday, Trump unveiled the White House Accord on Super Intelligence, also known as the Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities.
The voluntary agreement includes commitments from tech leaders, including Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) CEO Sundar Pichai, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Zuckerberg, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Musk and Huang.
The accord calls on participating companies to implement internal safeguards and subject their AI systems to independent external reviews.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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