Hello and welcome to Eye on AI! In this edition:

Yesterday, I recapped my day at “Winning the AI Race”—an event hosted by the All-In podcast and the Hill & Valley coalition—where Silicon Valley’s elite descended on Washington’s stately Andrew Mellon Auditorium to celebrate President Trump’s new AI Action Plan, which he signed onstage after a surreal afternoon that fused podcast spectacle with public policy. The only non–Silicon Valley touch seemed to be the sea of suits that replaced the typical tech uniform of hoodies and sneakers (though Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang refused to budge from his usual leather jacket and black jeans).

Trump’s speech before scrawling his signature went on so long that I missed my Amtrak train back to New Jersey. While I waited for the next one, I had plenty of time to reflect on the day—which, without question, was a victory lap for the so-called AI “accelerationists,” now led in Washington by David Sacks, Trump’s appointed AI and crypto czar and co-host of the All-In podcast.

Pushing Silicon Valley’s pro-speed, pro-scale ideology

Sacks—along with senior White House AI policy advisor Sriram Krishnan and Office of Science and Technology Policy director Michael Kratsios, both of whom were also present at the event—has been front and center pushing Silicon Valley’s pro-speed, pro-scale ideology, advocating for rapid deployment and minimal regulation of AI.

For the “accelerationists”—those who believe the rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence should be pursued as quickly as possible—innovation, scale, and speed are everything. Over-caution and regulation? Ill-conceived barriers that will actually cause more harm than good. They argue that faster progress will unlock massive economic growth, scientific breakthroughs, and national advantage. And if superintelligence is inevitable, they say, the U.S. had better get there first—before rivals like China’s authoritarian regime.

AI ethics and safety has been sidelined

This worldview, articulated by Marc Andreessen in his 2023 blog post, has now almost entirely displaced the diverse coalition of people who worked on AI ethics and safety during the Biden Administration—from mainstream policy experts focused on algorithmic fairness and accountability, to the safety researchers in Silicon Valley who warn of existential risks. While they often disagreed on priorities and tone, both camps shared the belief that AI needed thoughtful guardrails. Today, they find themselves largely out of step with an agenda that prizes speed, deregulation, and dominance.

Whether these groups can claw their way back to the table is still an open question. The mainstream ethics folks—with roots in civil rights, privacy, and democratic governance—may still have influence at the margins, or through international efforts. The existential risk researchers, once tightly linked to labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, still hold sway in academic and philanthropic circles. But in today’s environment—where speed, scale, and geopolitical muscle set the tone—both camps face an uphill climb. If they’re going to make a comeback, I get the feeling it won’t be through philosophical arguments. More likely, it would be because something goes wrong—and the public pushes back.

Also: I hope you’ll check out my first-ever Fortune cover story –a deep dive into Meta’s superintelligence spending spree, with a massive bet by Mark Zuckerberg on new chief AI officer and Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang. Also, don’t miss the marvelous feature from Jeremy Kahn about how Aravind Srinivas turned Perplexity into an $18 billion would-be Google killer. All part of our upcoming Most Powerful People issue!

With that, here’s the rest of the AI news.

Sharon Goldman
[email protected]
@sharongoldman

Fortune recently unveiled a new ongoing series, Fortune AIQ, dedicated to navigating AI’s real-world impact. Our third collection of stories explores how businesses across virtually every industry are putting AI to work—and how their particular field is changing as a result.

• How Walmart, Amazon, and other retail giants are using AI to reinvent the supply chain—from warehouse to checkout. Read more
• Meet the legacy players and upstarts using AI to reinvent the energy business. Read more
• AI isn’t just entering law offices—it’s challenging the entire legal playbook. Read more
• How a bulldozer, crane, and excavator rental company is using AI to save 3,000 hours per week. Read more
• AI is already touching nearly every corner of the medical field. Read more

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Andrew Caballero-Reynolds—AFP/Getty Images

Trump’s alliance with Silicon Valley began with the support of podcasting venture capitalists, one of whom was later tapped to be Trump’s AI and crypto czar. 

And so, as the Trump administration unveiled its highly anticipated AI policy plan on Wednesday, it seemed only fitting that the ceremonies and celebrations took the form of a live podcast in the nation’s capital. 

David Sacks, Trump’s AI czar, shared the stage with his cohosts from the All-In podcast on Wednesday, walking through the various elements of the new 28-page AI Action Plan and interviewing a rotating cast of guests that included Vice President (and former venture capitalist) JD Vance, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Michael Kratsios, and various tech industry bigwigs including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. 

Sitting on plush white chairs and backed by American flags, patriotic music, and flashy videos of giant data centers and factories, the event’s hosts (the podcast’s self-described “besties”) and guests discussed the AI arms race with China, supply-chain risks, health care, education, and “giving the American workers superpowers.”  

Artificial intelligence is “not destroying jobs,” said David Friedberg, one of the podcast hosts and a venture capitalist. The media, he said, has created a false narrative that ignores the “immense job creation underway.”

As Vice President Vance came onstage, the audience of several hundred people rose to its feet and cheered. “We have the best hardware and software, but our edge is not something we can rest on our laurels,” Vance said. “If we regulate ourselves to death we should blame our own leaders.”

The AI Action Plan at the center of the discussion was commissioned by Trump after he took office in January and summarily revoked the Biden administration’s executive order on AI safety. Sacks, the AI czar, along with Sriram Krishnan, a former VC at Andreessen Horowitz who currently serves as a senior policy advisor to the White House, produced the report over the past six months. It contains more than 90 policy recommendations to spur the development of AI and maintain U.S. supremacy in the highly competitive technology.

Sharon Goldman

Among the report’s recommendations: loosening federal and state regulations perceived as constraining AI development; increasing the number of AI data centers and the supply of energy to power AI; facilitating the export of U.S.-made technology to approved countries while limiting China’s access; and taking steps to ensure that large language models used by the government are free of ideological bias related to climate change, diversity, and other issues.

The U.S. must win the AI arms race, said Sacks as the event kicked off. “The consequences of losing the race are unthinkable.”  

Sacks said the AI report had three big pillars: accelerating innovation; building U.S. AI infrastructure; and leading in international diplomacy and security. 

Sacks, whose VC firm Craft Ventures has invested in startups including Airbnb, Reddit, and defense startup Anduril, said that he never expected to go into government until Trump came on the All-In podcast. Sacks threw a fundraiser for Trump at his San Francisco home in 2024. 

Wednesday’s event, at Washington D.C.’s neoclassical Andrew Mellon Auditorium, where President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced military conscription in 1940 and the North Atlantic Treaty was signed nine years later, made for a sometimes surreal display of the Trump administration’s fusion of politics, policy, and entertainment. And it underscored the extent to which Silicon Valley’s leaders are keen to foster good relations with the Trump administration. Other guest speakers at the event included Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, James Litinsky, the CEO of rare earth minerals company MP Materials, and AMD CEO Lisa Su.

“We are seeing this incredibly large demand in AI,” said Su, stressing the company’s commitment to produce some chips in Arizona through a facility built by TSMC.

“Today’s AI Action Plan is an excellent blueprint,” said Su.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Roy Rochlin—Getty Images for Hill & Valley Forum