Jon Stewart has shared his take on why President Donald Trump is caving to pro-artificial-intelligence tech billionaires.
The president announced his “White House Accord on Super Intelligence” last week in a move that appeared to be a total appeasement to the growing AI industry.
The accord document, signed by MAGA billionaire Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, essentially declared that the AI industry would oversee itself rather than be subjected to serious government oversight.
“They’re gonna self-police,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “It’s gonna work out very well.”
Trump’s relaxed attitude on AI comes as tech CEOs like Musk have claimed there’s a non-zero chance that AI will “end humanity.”
In his monologue Monday, Stewart offered his take on why Trump is going hands-off on the potentially world-ending technology.
“What, did they give you millions of dollars or something?” Stewart said to Trump before telling the audience reluctantly, “I’m being told they gave him millions of dollars.”
Trump, whose 2024 election campaign already received $290 million in donations from Musk, has also bought and sold shares in AI company Nvidia, as well as AI innovator Microsoft.
A White House spokesperson told the BBC that Trump’s stock portfolio presents “no conflict of interest,” and that “neither President Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested.”
One of Trump’s recurring arguments for not regulating the AI industry is that he wants America to beat China in the AI race.
Stewart showed clips of Republican figures echoing Trump’s claims, including one of Senator Ted Cruz saying, “There are going to be killer robots. I’d rather they be American killer robots than Chinese killer robots.”
“May I offer a third option: No killer robots. Maybe?” Stewart replied. “It seems popular. I don’t know, maybe I’m the first person to say it. If someone else has already suggested this, I’m terribly sorry.”
Stewart also seemed stunned by how the president justified letting the AI companies regulate themselves, sharing a clip of Trump telling reporters on Tuesday, “We have the smartest people in the world watching over each other. These are seriously high-IQ people, and they’re really watching over each other.”
“Yeah, seriously high-IQ people would never have a problem watching over each other to make sure that moral and legal lines aren’t crossed,” Stewart quipped. “Like in the 2008 financial crisis, or this real Epstein Files photo of Stephen Hawking.”
