Americanswers… on 5 Live! Can Trump convince voters a “High IQ” president is the only guardrail AI needs?

**Justin Webb** (0:00)
Why is Donald Trump doubling down on AI at the very moment that the bosses of AI warn that the technology needs to be slowed down? Also, why is Donald Trump suddenly in favour of the unification of Ireland?
When it comes to giving every American citizen $5,000 if the Republicans win both houses of Congress in the midterm elections, how realistic is that? And another big question from Congress, Mitch McConnell, the former leader of the Republicans and the Senate, is back now or is he? And why does it matter so much? Welcome to Americancers.

**Anthony Zurcher** (0:37)
Americast from BBC News.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:39)
Whatever you want to talk about, Abdul, keep my wife's name the hell out of your mouth because she's way out of your league.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:45)
The tide is coming and this time we intend to win it all.

**SPEAKER_6** (0:51)
See, he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenceless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.

**Donald Trump** (1:03)
When I'm not around, you're going to be broke. There's not going to be anybody to report on. Nobody gives a damn about anybody else.

**Matt Chorley** (1:14)
It's the first time I've had those news titles. A never-ending supply of interesting sound bites that America produces.

**Justin Webb** (1:23)
Long may it continue.

**Matt Chorley** (1:25)
On the subject of which, we've just had some breaking news from the AFP. Donald Trump blasts sick conspiracy against AI.
This is further comments from the president on artificial intelligence. So over the weekend, we had two more AI bosses, Elon Musk and Sam Altman backing the head of Anthropic, Dario Amodi, who'd called to slow down the pace of AI development. He had warned AI swarm could become capable of taking over the entire internet within a year. Well, speaking on his trip to Ireland, President Trump was asked about further regulation yesterday.

**Donald Trump** (1:58)
We're leading China in AI. We're the most sophisticated country in the world. And frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins.
And we could put guardrails, we can do this and that. But I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn't be bringing it up. And they're bringing up things that won't happen. But whoever wins with AI wins.

**Matt Chorley** (2:20)
That's what Donald Trump was saying. Right. We've got some questions on this exact topic. Robin emails, mmeracast.bbc.co.uk.
We need to change our approach to AI and safety. Instead of regulating AI like an industry, should we be guiding its behaviour like you would bringing up a child? Kevin in Kent asked the BBC, How is it possible for a slowdown to be imposed, particularly as AI is close to the stage, of recursive self-improvement which won't need human intervention? Sarah, it doesn't sound like Donald Trump is about to heed these calls for a slowdown.

**Sarah Smith** (2:53)
No.
You're right. He is very, very clear that he doesn't want to impose a kind of safeguards or regulations around AI companies that some of them, they themselves are calling for. It was in a Truth Social Post just a few minutes ago where he said there was a sick conspiracy against AI. He also said the only controller guardrails that AI needs is a strong and smart high IQ president and the USA has that in spades. So that tells you where he is on the issue. What's interesting though is he's very, very far away from public opinion on this. All the polling shows and the voters are genuinely concerned about the possible threats from AI and also very, very worried about huge data centers being built in their areas, which is something that there's a great deal of public upset about. But Donald Trump said the other day that anybody who doesn't want a data center near them wants to continue to be poor for the rest of their lives. So there's a very strange disconnect going on between him and people. He usually has a better handle on how they're feeling. But on this one, it's all the tech bros who are in and out of the White House, who've contributed so many millions to his campaigns, seem to be the ones who've got him onside.

**Matt Chorley** (3:59)
Sumi, what's your lead on this?

**Sumi Somaskanda** (4:01)
Yeah, I think with the latest True Social Post from President Trump, what he is missing there is, it's not just Dario Amadai who has had some clashes with the Trump administration, in particular, with the Pentagon over the use of Anthropic and its models in government. It is also Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI. It is also Elon Musk, a number of industry leaders now actually throwing their weight behind the idea of the need to slow down or pace AI, as they have said. And I've spoken to a number of analysts to say that that zero-sum game with China isn't necessarily as it's being painted as a national security imperative because China also has a vested interest in making sure that their own AI models, think about their Kimi 3 model, which also kind of broke out of a testing environment, as we understand, that their own models also, you know, don't pose a risk to China and their companies and their people. So in any discussions with China, when Xi Jinping comes here in a few weeks time to visit President Trump for a summit at the White House, there is real common ground possibly for some sort of regulation on a global scale. But, you know, what Sarah said about President Trump being kind of at odds with the polling and what Justin was saying with Republican voters as well, I wonder if this has kind of just gotten past Donald Trump, because you get the sense here that a dam has broken. I mean, walking in, I'll say that this morning to the office, literally every network over the last three days really has been covering nonstop the fear around what AI could pose to American society and to global society. And yeah, you do get the feeling now that perhaps this discussion has reached some sort of breaking point where there could be regulation. Whether that comes from Congress, it's hard to believe much will come from Congress right now, but it could be. And you do get the sense that there's a consensus here now.