David Sacks, a key adviser to President Trump on technology, told CBS News he believes that fears about artificial intelligence’s potential threat to humanity are overblown and that, while caution is warranted, development of AI should continue.
“I think this is becoming a panic,” he told CBS News senior business and technology correspondent Jo Ling Kent. “We’re in an election season, and there is an incentive for political actors to try and amplify the fear. And I think this is a moment to really calm down a little bit and look at the issue rationally.”
Sacks’ comments come amid mounting concerns that advanced AI platforms could inflict catastrophic harm on people. On Sept. 8, former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned that Anthropic and OpenAI are “gambling with our lives” by developing self-improving “superintelligence.”
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told CBS News “Sunday Morning” that “there are real dangers” with AI, adding that the “industry lied to people about the fact that this technology had risks.”
“If you can’t control it, then don’t do it”
In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Sacks placed the onus on Anthropic, OpenAI and other large language model developers to protect the public from AI, saying it is the companies’ responsibility to ensure the tech is safe.
“First and foremost, it is on them to make their products safe,” he said. “They should tell us how they should do that. If they can’t do that, they should step aside for people who can do that.”
“What they should not be doing is making the public afraid that they’re doing a bad job,” added Sacks, who is co-chair of Mr. Trump’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He stepped down from his role as the president’s AI and cryptocurrency czar in May.
AI companies also shouldn’t require government intervention to safeguard the public from harm, Sacks said.
“Why are you acting like this is something that you can’t control?” he said in reference to Amodei. “If you can’t control it, then don’t do it.”
“Now, look at the end of the day, I think these risks can be managed, and I do not want to stop. I want to proceed safely,” Sacks added.
As a venture capitalist, Sacks has invested in some of tech’s biggest companies, including Airbnb, SpaceX and Facebook, according to his bio at Craft Ventures, the investment firm he co-founded.
Advantage China?
Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other tech leaders have called on the industry to slow the development of AI amid fears that the rapidly advancing technology could inflict serious harm on humanity.
Their calls followed growing concerns over superintelligence, a theoretical stage in AI’s development in which it could outperform humans at every cognitive task, a milestone some researchers say could be reached in one to 10 years.
Not everyone is convinced that AI companies should pause, or even delay, the development of frontier models. That includes President Trump, who on Monday dismissed calls for stronger guardrails around AI development and claimed the industry is already sufficiently regulated.
Sacks echoed that view, arguing that constraining AI development risks putting the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage with China, which has rapidly closed the gap with American AI players.
If “we just pause all development, they will race ahead. It’s pretty clear they’re not going to stop,” Sacks said.
