Trump rejects calls to work with China on AI safety despite Xi summit progress

US President Donald Trump firmly rejected calls to collaborate with China on artificial intelligence (AI) safety measures at a recent summit, despite progress made during the event. Speaking at the launch of America.gov, a new AI-powered federal government portal, Trump argued that cooperation between the two nations would risk America's technological dominance.

"Whoever wins superintelligence wins. You’re gonna have a winner and a loser, and you’re probably not gonna have a second place," Trump stated, emphasizing the US's current lead in AI technology. He expressed his desire to maintain this advantage by continuing to develop AI independently, without compromising US secrets to China.

Following the summit, China and the US agreed to establish an AI incident notification hotline and ongoing dialogue on AI risks, with the next meeting scheduled for November in Shenzhen. However, key details about the topics to be discussed remain undisclosed. One area of contention is the terminology used to describe AI, with Trump advocating for the term "superintelligence" (SI), which he claims sounds less "fake" than the commonly used "artificial intelligence."

Despite Trump's insistence that Chinese President Xi "loves" the term SI, Beijing continues to use the term "artificial intelligence." The administration's AI push highlighted during the event faces growing public opposition, with a recent poll indicating that 61% of likely voters oppose building data centers to power AI technology.

Trump also signed an executive order directing federal agencies to integrate their public-facing services with America.gov, emphasizing the importance of AI in government operations.