Dozens of conservative leaders seem to be increasingly spooked by AI and are now calling on President Donald Trump to put stronger guardrails around the tech. Steve Bannon and more than 60 other Trump allies sent a letter to the president urging him to sign an executive order that would require the federal government to vet what they call “potentially dangerous” frontier AI models before they are released. The letter was organized by Humans First, a conservative group ostensibly focused on AI policy. Interestingly, a significant portion of the letter’s signers are pastors. “Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly and now extends far beyond simple chatbots used for homework help or internet searches. Frontier AI systems are becoming increasingly powerful and could pose serious risks to cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, financial systems, election integrity, biosecurity, and even our military and national defense capabilities if deployed recklessly or without proper safeguards,” the letter reads.
The letter goes on to call for policies requiring mandatory testing and government approval of advanced AI models before deployment. The group also takes aim at AI companies and the executives behind them. “No private corporation should have unilateral authority to deploy technologies that could profoundly impact the national security and stability of the United States without meaningful evaluation and safeguards,” the letter says.
