Lightning in a Bottle: VP JD Vance Exhorts AI Action Summit to Focus on Opportunity, Not Fear

Vice President JD Vance is overseas this week, traveling first to Paris, France, to attend the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit, then on to Munich, Germany, for the Security Conference. On Tuesday, he addressed the Summit, delivering remarks on the United States’ vision for AI and the opportunity it presents. 

Vance’s speech was relatively brief — just over 15 minutes — but it set out that vision clearly and pointedly, calling on our European allies, in particular, to step back from over-regulation and censorship and be wary of adversarial regimes.

Video of the full speech may be viewed at the bottom of this article, but to hit the key points of it, he emphasized the importance of focusing on opportunity, not fear or safety, and set out four key goals: 

1. Ensuring that American AI technology continues to be the gold standard
2. Eschewing excessive regulation
3. Keeping it free from ideological bias and from being “co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship”
4. Remaining pro-worker

JD Vance Nukes the Left Into Next Week For Rooting Against US in Tariff Fight With Mexico

‘We’re in It for the Long Haul’: JD Vance in East Palestine Marks 2-Year Anniversary of Derailment

Some added highlights:

I’m not here this morning to talk about AI safety, which was the title of the conference a couple of years ago.  I’m here to talk about AI opportunity. 

…
 
The United States of America is the leader in AI, and our administration plans to keep it that way.  The U.S. possesses all components across the full AI stack, including advanced semiconductor design, frontier algorithms, and, of course, transformational applications.

…

[T]he Trump Administration will ensure that the most powerful AI systems are built in the U.S. with American designed and manufactured chips.

…

America wants to partner with all of you, and we want to embark on the AI revolution before us with a spirit of openness and collaboration.

…

And we need our European friends, in particular, to look to this new frontier with optimism rather than trepidation.

…

[T]he Trump Administration is troubled by reports that some foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on U.S. tech companies with international footprints.  Now, America cannot and will not accept that, and we think it’s a terrible mistake not just for the United States of America but for your own countries.

…

Many of our most productive tech companies are forced to deal with the EU’s Digital Services Act and the massive regulations it created about taking down content and policing so-called misinformation.
 
And, of course, we want to ensure the Internet is a safe place.  But it is one thing to prevent a predator from preying on a child on the Internet, and it is something quite different to prevent a grown man or woman from accessing an opinion that the government thinks is misinformation. 

…

The AI future is not going to be won by hand-wringing about safety.  It will be won by building — from reliable power plants to the manufacturing facilities that can produce the chips of the future. 

…

[T]he Trump Administration will ensure that AI systems developed in America are free from ideological bias and never restrict our citizens’ right to free speech. 
 
We can trust our people to think, to consume information, to develop their own ideas, and to debate with one another in the open marketplace of ideas. 

Now, we’ve also watched as hostile foreign adversaries have weaponized AI software to rewrite history, surveil users, and censor speech.

…

I want to be clear.  This administration will block such efforts, full stop. We will safeguard American AI and chip technologies from theft and misuse, work with our allies and partners to strengthen and extend these protections, and close pathways to advertaries [adversaries] attaining AI capabilities that threaten all of our people.  

And I would also remind our international friends here today that partnering with such regimes, it never pays off in the long term.

…

But as I know, and I think some of this — some of us in this room have learned from experience, partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in, and seize your information infrastructure. 
 
Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley: If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.

…

Now, this doesn’t mean, of course, that all concerns about safety go out the window.  But focus matters, and we must focus now on the opportunity to catch lightning in a bottle, unleash our most brilliant innovators, and use AI to improve the well-being of our nations and their peoples. 

Three weeks into his tenure as vice president, JD Vance appears to be settling into the role comfortably and representing the U.S. on the world stage confidently and admirably. 

His remarks indicate he has a solid grasp on the promise of AI and the importance of seizing the opportunity of it, rather than over-regulating it out of safety concerns. 

That grasp seems to be a sight better than his predecessor’s.

Kamala Harris explains AI:

“AI is kind of a fancy thing. First of all, it’s two letters. It means ‘Artificial Intelligence.'” pic.twitter.com/yurodfTOY9

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 12, 2023

I’d say he’s earning his keep just fine. 

This post was originally published on this site