US President Donald Trump says his administration once warned the head of a major AI company that they were headed to jail over something they were doing with AI, though he declined to say who it was.
Trump made the remarks during an interview with Ross Douthat that aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday night. He said his team had encountered a situation where someone was reported to them for doing something bad with AI, and that the administration responded with an extremely blunt phone call.
“Get ready to go to jail,” Trump recalled telling the person, adding that he’d told them to go home and give their wife a kiss goodnight. He said the message was that they’d be in custody the next morning, and that the exchange even included a quip about whether the executive liked the color orange.
“One Of The Big Ones”
Trump said he couldn’t reveal the identity of the person or their company. Pressed by Douthat on whether it was a leader of a major AI company, Trump said the individual was from “one of the big ones.”
According to Trump, the warning worked. He said the executive “totally changed everything” afterward. Trump also said he didn’t believe the conduct had been malicious, though he allowed that it could have been.
Business Insider reported that representatives for the White House and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the claim. There has been no public indication of which company or executive Trump was referring to, and the account has not been independently confirmed.
Source: CBS News’ 60 Minutes, interview with host Ross Douthat, aired Sunday. Additional reporting from Business Insider.