President Donald Trump conceded Monday that artificial intelligence will have a seismic impact on the labor market.
Trump, speaking at a small business event at the White House, opened his remarks by touting both foreign and domestic investments his agenda is funneling into the American economy, specifically in the AI space.
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The Trump administration has placed a clear focus on boosting American AI companies as other countries, specifically China, similarly aim to gain a foothold in the emerging industry.
“We’re leading China in AI, and I’m going to go see President Xi [Jinping] in two weeks,” he remarked. “I look forward to that, but I’ll say, ‘I’m leading.’ We have very friendly competition.”
Later in his speech, Trump claimed that his policies have driven down unemployment to the “lowest level since 1969,” adding that “more Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country.”
“Somebody was saying, ‘Oh, will AI take our jobs?’ Well, we have a lot of AI. They said, ‘it’s going to take jobs,'” the president continued. “I said, ‘Well, you’re probably right, maybe a little bit, but it’s going to create a lot of jobs.'”
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“AI is very important because that’s a tremendously big industry we want to be able to lead,” Trump stated. “Primarily, it’s China, but others, other countries are very much active in it.”
Watch Trump’s comments in full below:
