Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned the nation’s corporate and political elite about the perils of unregulated artificial intelligence during the White House technology summit on Thursday.
Kissinger, 95, joined a small group in the Roosevelt Room of the West Wing and pointed the group to his June article in the Atlantic describing an automated dystopia.
“He shared his views on AI and referenced the paper he had written,” a source familiar with the meeting told the Washington Examiner.
Kissinger spoke to a group including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf, and Oracle CEO Safra Catz. Trump recently appointed Catz to an intelligence advisory panel.
First daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump helped organize the summit, branded “Industries of the Future” and closed to reporters. The meeting was noted only in a cursory press pool report.
The Wall Street Journal reported that a meeting agenda include policy discussion about AI, 5G wireless technology, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, and science, technology, engineering, and math education.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, and presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner also attended, the source familiar with the meeting said.
Trump “held court,” the source said, arriving after most policy-focused interaction between guests. Trump did not mention allegations of political bias he made earlier this year against tech giants including Google.
“The president came in toward the end of the meeting,” the source recounted. “He was more holding court, the back and forth had taken place before that.”
Instead of delving into questions of policy for development of AI and other new technologies, Trump spoke about trade policy reform.
“He spoke a fair amount about trade and the G-20 meetings,” the source said. “He seemed to have a high confidence level about trade negotiations with China coming out the G-20 meetings.”
