Trump hosts tech leaders as debate grows over AI regulation

President Donald Trump is hosting top technology leaders at the White House Tuesday as concerns grow over how the government should regulate rapidly advancing artificial intelligence

(NBC)- President Donald Trump is hosting top technology leaders at the White House Tuesday as concerns grow over how the government should regulate rapidly advancing artificial intelligence. The meeting includes executives from major AI and technology companies and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Johnson said the government should seek a balance between safety and innovation without imposing a moratorium or regulations he believes could hurt the United States in its competition with China.

“We do not need a moratorium and we do not need to jump in and hyper regulate this because we’ll lose the race to China,” Johnson said. “The innovation is important to continue. We have to strike the right balance.”

Pope Leo XIV, meanwhile, has called for guardrails around the technology and said warnings from some industry leaders about potential dangers from advanced AI should be taken seriously.

“We can’t just sit back and pretend nothing is going to happen,” Leo said.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has also called for greater safety measures as increasingly powerful AI models are developed.

“We need to make sure that every generation of models that we release is properly tested,” Amodei said.

Trump has repeatedly emphasized maintaining U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence and has resisted calls for an industry-wide slowdown, arguing that restrictions could give China an advantage.

Those who study the technology have called for measures including independent testing and greater transparency to help policymakers identify potential risks.

The debate comes as an NBC News Decision Desk poll found 81% of adults surveyed believe the government is not doing enough to regulate artificial intelligence. The online survey included more than 7,000 adults.