{"id":28757,"date":"2026-09-14T18:12:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T01:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=28757"},"modified":"2026-09-18T16:29:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T23:29:17","slug":"the-conservative-denial-of-existential-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/09\/14\/the-conservative-denial-of-existential-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"The Conservative Denial of Existential Threats"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Trump thinks concerns about AI are a hoax;<\/li>\n<li>Paul Krugman relates AI to climate change: the MAGA plot(s) to destroy humanity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>Trump thinks concern about AI is a hoax.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/gettyimages-2295083446.jpg?c=original&amp;q=w_1202,c_fill\/f_avif\" width=\"250\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>CNN, today<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/09\/14\/politics\/trump-vance-ai-alarms\">Trump dismisses AI alarms as a \u2018HOAX\u2019 \u2014 worrying White House officials<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>President Donald Trump spent Monday angrily rejecting calls from AI industry leaders for more government regulation on their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/business\/tech\/ai-news-artificial-intelligence-updates\">cutting-edge models<\/a>, making clear in a day-long string of social media posts he considers outpacing China and preserving AI-driven economic gains a higher priority than addressing growing public concerns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmu1eqnt100033b6qhmrtiprd@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">Trump asserted a \u201cSICK conspiracy\u201d was afoot to undermine AI and claimed his oversight alone was enough to prevent models from going rogue. He called concerns a \u201cHOAX,\u201d comparing the technology to the \u201cGlobal Warming Scam\u201d and the investigation of possible ties between his campaign and the Russian government. He also renewed his support for the data centers that power AI, despite their political unpopularity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe only control or \u2018guardrails\u2019 that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social, where he frequently posts AI-generated images and videos of himself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We&#8217;re doomed.<\/p>\n<p>\\<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!SCS_!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9b269331-a7de-457d-8f26-76d2c3249343_1536x1024.jpeg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Paul Krugman, today<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/paulkrugman.substack.com\/p\/the-maga-plots-to-destroy-humanity\">The MAGA Plot(s) to Destroy Humanity<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;On AI and climate, it\u2019s the same story of mass destruction&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He recounts the current situation, discussing the recent call Daron Amodei by the CEO of Anthropic to slow things down.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For in a real sense, Amodei isn\u2019t just trying to protect humanity from rogue AI, he is also trying to protect humanity from Donald Trump. It\u2019s important to remember that, under the Biden administration, government policymakers tried to formulate some basic AI precautions. But removing those precautions was literally one of the first things Donald Trump did when taking office the second time. And that\u2019s a history worth revisiting at a moment when the AI industry itself is sounding the alarm, but Trump is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c7v48vp31mdo\">dismissing the risks<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn\u2019t be bringing it up and they\u2019re bringing up things that won\u2019t happen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, I\u2019m glad to know that he\u2019s sure that bad things won\u2019t happen. But last I heard, Trump wasn\u2019t a technology expert. And his recent record on rosy predictions \u2014 wasn\u2019t the Iran war supposed to be over in a few days? \u2014 hasn\u2019t been great.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With some history, including this.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The centerpiece of the Biden agenda on AI was Executive Order 14401, issued on October 30, 2023, titled \u201cSafe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.\u201d The document declared that<\/p>\n<p>Harnessing AI for good and realizing its myriad benefits requires mitigating its substantial risks. This endeavor demands a society-wide effort that includes government, the private sector, academia, and civil society.<\/p>\n<p>Would we be less panicked now if there had been a serious effort to put that executive order\u2019s recommendations into effect? It\u2019s basically impossible to say, because precautionary policy toward AI never got a chance. Trump revoked Executive Order 14401 on Jan. 20, 2025. Yes, you read that right: He literally removed all safeguards on AI on his first day in office.<\/p>\n<p>Just three days later his administration issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/01\/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence\/\">new executive order<\/a>, \u201cRemoving barriers to American leadership in artificial intelligence,\u201d which might be summarized as \u201cDamn the social and existential risks, full speed ahead.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And then a section about climate change, which now Trump claims is a hoax because it hasn&#8217;t ended the world yet.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There is a lot to be said about the reasons our current government seems so determined to rush into disaster, even when the very survival of humanity may be at stake. Climate denial, we know from decades of experience, is fueled by an unholy trinity of financial interest (fossil fuel companies determined to keep their profits flowing), ideology (conservatives hostile to any form of regulation) and psychological insecurity (real men burn stuff.) AI-risk denial presumably reflects a similar mix of factors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trump thinks concerns about AI are a hoax; Paul Krugman relates AI to climate change: the MAGA plot(s) to destroy humanity. &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; Trump thinks concern about AI is a hoax. CNN, today: Trump dismisses AI alarms as a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/09\/14\/the-conservative-denial-of-existential-threats\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-human-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28757"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28802,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28757\/revisions\/28802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}