US politicians push AI growth amid industry warnings

The speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson has warned that slowing AI development could cost the United States the tech race to China, desite calls in recent days from leading industry figures to tap the brakes.

US President Donald Trump mirrored his observations as he hit out at critics of artificial intelligence calling them "negative forces".

"We're leading China in AI. We're the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins," Mr Trump said.

The comments come after Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei called on AI companies to moderate the speed at which they advance model capabilities.

Key among his concerns is so-called "recursive self-improvement", or when AI can build its own next generation.