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Artificial intelligence is the future, we’re often told. But it can also prove to be a constant source of confusion in the present. Like when your phone updates and suddenly “Apple Intelligence” is summarizing your texts before you’ve read them – or when you no longer need to click through to a website when you Google something. But don’t worry: the Explainer-in-Chief is on hand to help make sense of the chaos.
President Donald “Everything is Computer” Trump addressed an AI summit at DC’s Mellon Auditorium yesterday evening for around an hour, high on the fumes of his recently agreed trade frameworks with Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines. The 79-year-old Commander in Chief almost seemed as though he wasn’t going to touch on his main agenda item, so eager was he to tout the success of his tariffs policy and shout out the cohosts of the All-In podcast by name. When he did get around to his central theme, the President had a bone to pick with the branding.
“I don’t even like the name… I don’t like anything that’s artificial, we should change the name,” Trump told the room of tech moguls. “It’s not artificial, it’s genius.” The President was exhaustive in his analysis of how AI technology had developed over the past few years. “It just popped out of the air and here we are,” he said.
Trump has never been one for nitty-gritty detail. His understanding of AI is rooted, as with many complex subjects, in his desire to beat the opposition. The administration’s AI Action Plan and the three AI-related executive orders he signed at the conclusion of his remarks were designed to “reassert the future – which belongs to America.”
“America is going to win it. We’re gonna work hard and we’re gonna win it,” he told the crowd to applause.
For the details, it seems, we have Trump’s AI and crypto czar David Sacks (of the All-In podcast) to thank. The 28-page AI Action Plan is the fruit of his six-month effort to bring the federal government in line with Silicon Valley. It sets out to “accelerate AI innovation,” “build American AI infrastructure” and “lead in international AI diplomacy and security.” One way the government plans to do so? Running roughshod through copyright, apparently.
“You can’t be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book or anything else that you’ve read or studied, you’re supposed to pay for,” President Trump said. “You just can’t do it because it’s not doable… China’s not doing it.”
The plan also directs government departments to “prioritize AI skill development as a core objective of relevant education and workforce funding streams” and tells the Department of Labor to “leverage available discretionary funding, where appropriate, to fund rapid retraining for individuals impacted by AI-related job displacement.” An AI text summary of all that might read: “learn to code.”
At an after-party on the Line Hotel rooftop following the summit, DC’s more fashionable set were moseying along to ambient house music as various artists demonstrated how they’d been using AI in their work, in a bizarre adult show-and-tell. “Everyone here is a user who can leverage AI to transform your life,” one speaker told the crowd. Do we have a choice?
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