Jimmy Fallon mocked Donald Trump for dismissing concerns about AI while calling the president’s intelligence into question.
During Monday’s monologue for “The Tonight Show,” Fallon called out Trump for claiming on Truth Social that the only guardrails AI needs is a “strong and smart (High IQ!) president.”
“Well, I feel better,” Fallon sarcastically quipped. “Trump was like, ‘I’d like to see ChatGPT pick out a zebra on a cognitive test. I don’t think so, buddy.’”
He added: “We’re relying on Trump to beat AI?! I don’t think Trump can beat Wordle. You know what I’m saying? Trump’s handling it, which means he’s gonna change it from artificial intelligence to American intelligence.”
As Fallon continued to rib Trump, the late night host suggested that the president thought “AI stood for ‘American Idol,’” adding in his best Trump voice: “I’ve spoken with Ryan Seacrest and we’re perfectly safe.”
On Trump’s decision to double down on his stance, Fallon indicated he wasn’t too surprised.
“For some reason, Trump’s not eager to stop something that let’s him make photos of himself as Jesus riding a bald eagle,” he said. “Yep, Trump’s said that concerns about AI have been exaggerated by very negative forces. And then he announced plans to fight those forces with a new military branch called, ‘The Very Negative Force Force.’”
Watch Fallon’s full monologue below.
Fallon’s commentary came amid a growing conversation around a need for AI regulation, which sparked last week when ex-Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon announced his departure from the company and suggested the technology “could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
Over the weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei responded to the concern in a nearly 4,000-word essay, writing, “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models. Progress will still seem fast, and we must make wise use of the time we gain.”
Amodei soon received support from both Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, Dennis Hassabis, chief scientist at Alphabet and co-founder of Google DeepMind and Elon Musk, founder of SpaceXAI (formerly xAI).
However, Trump was not onboard with this notion, responding on Truth Social with: “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades! The Trump Administration has stopped AI ‘people’ from doing bad, or potentially bad, ‘things,’ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a ‘perfect little angel’ – and we will continue to do so! We already have tremendous CRIMINAL and REGULATORY power over these companies! There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS! We are leading China, and all others, and will continue to do so. Conspiracy Theorists, Treasonists, Traitors, and Leakers, BEWARE! Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
A representative for the White House did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment regarding Fallon’s monologue.
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on NBC.
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