Donald Trump has outlined his concerns regarding the development of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
In an interview with FOX Business’s Maria Bartiromo, the former US President labelled CBDCs as “very dangerous” and reiterates a point he made several weeks prior, where he declared at a New England state rally that he would never allow a US CBDC if he were to be elected as President later this year.
He told Bartiromo: “It’s very dangerous. One day you don’t have any money in your account, it can be a very dangerous thing.”
Trump’s CBDC stance mirrors that of his former Republican Party primary election rival Rob DeSantis, who dropped out as the Republican candidate last January.
He stated: “If I am the president, on day one, we will nix central bank digital currency. Done. Dead. Not happening in this country.”
This is a sentiment seemingly shared by a large portion of the Republican Party as last year, US Senator Ted Cruz unveiled a bill that would outright ban any notion of a CBDC from becoming a reality into the wider US financial landscape.
The proposed bill had the backing of other Republican Party members and sought to address and raise concerns surrounding the digital currencies’ ability to trace and track user transactions, which the bill regards as a security and privacy issue.
Trump also told FOX Business that if he were to be elected for office for a second term, he would not re-appoint current Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell.
Despite running into his second term as Fed Chair that does not end until 2026, Trump believes Powell will “do something to help the Democrats” if he were to lower interest rates due to Powell stating that they are looking to do so if inflation falls below their 2% target.
One other notable concern Trump raised in his interview with Bartiromo was AI and its potentially dangerous security risk.
He told FOX Business: “The other thing I think is the most dangerous thing out there, of anything because there is no real solution, the AI as they call it, is so scary. I saw somebody ripping me off the other day where they had me making a speech about their product. I said I never endorsed that product, and you can not even tell the difference.”
Generative AI, in particular, has exploded into life over the last year through automated apps such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT in being able to quickly generate texts, images and videos at a simple request.
This has led to widespread concerns over AI’s role in society and its risk of falling into the wrong hands, which is why a host of global leaders came together in London last November to attend the AI Safety Summit.
The UK, USA, China and more, agreed to work with one another as part of the Bletchley Pact to come up with solutions to regulate AI and safeguard users with responsible AI usage.
Despite this, Trump remains concerned of the “tremendous problem” AI poses and believes that it is a problem that should be ‘worked on right now’.
He said: “You can get that into wars, and other things. Something has to be done about this and it has to be done fast, and nobody really knows what to do. The technology is so good and it is so powerful, that what you say in an interview almost does not matter anymore, you can change things around and nobody will be able to tell the difference.
“This is a tremendous problem in terms of security, this is a problem that they better get working on right now.”
