Microsoft Corp. artificial intelligence chief Mustafa Suleyman has taken a contrasting stance on AI regulation compared to President Trump's approach. According to reports from Bloomberg, Suleyman stated on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS that concerns about China's AI progress shouldn't be used as an argument against implementing guardrails around artificial intelligence development. "I don't think we should use China as the bogeyman for not making progress on our own efforts" on AI safety, Suleyman emphasized, directly challenging Trump's recent statements supporting largely unfettered AI development. His comments come as Trump has increasingly called for "largely unfettered development of AI" and called fears of potentially catastrophic consequences of out-of-control artificial intelligence a hoax.
Suleyman's comments come as Microsoft's AI team published a manifesto on Tuesday guiding their own AI development with the goal of keeping humans in control of future AI systems. As reported by Bloomberg, he also released an essay last week that took aim at some of the language in the guiding documents behind Claude, Anthropic PBC's family of large language models — a high-profile rebuke of a firm that has positioned itself as a more responsible steward of AI. "AI developers should give models goals that are 'bounded by the humanist code that I think everyone in the industry should set for them, which is that they should have clear guardrails,'" Suleyman told CNN. He emphasized that regulation should be viewed as "creating shared norms and standards to increase safety" rather than slowing progress, stating it "shouldn't have to slow us down."
The regulatory debate follows warnings from leaders of major AI platforms about the need to slow development pace of their most advanced models. According to Bloomberg, Alphabet Inc.'s Google, OpenAI, Anthropic PBC and Meta Platforms Inc. have all disclosed instances of their AI agents hacking into other companies' systems. Trump's science and technology adviser Michael Kratsios said Sunday that AI safety "needs to be approached from a use case-specific, industry-specific way, not through these one-size-fits-all approaches."
Trump has maintained his position supporting AI growth, stating Saturday he plans to name an AI czar and rejecting concerns about technology risks to humans. As reported by Bloomberg, he claimed the US is leading China and the rest of the world in AI development, saying "We are leading China, and the rest of World, and I intend to keep it that way!" Trump's Democratic opponents have called for guardrails on AI, which Kratsios dismissed as fearmongering ahead of November midterm elections. He suggested that companies concerned about AI model safety are free to rein them in, stating that the administration's position is that companies can simply stop developing technologies they believe are unsafe.
