American leadership is needed on artificial intelligence (AI) to prevent China from racing ahead, according to Build American AI executive director Nathan Leamer.
Leamer, who leads the group focused on advocating for American leadership in AI, explained that AI’s many potential benefits for working Americans will be squandered if America surrenders AI leadership to China.
“American leadership is needed. Otherwise, China is going to lead the way, and that’s going to put us at a disadvantage,” Leamer explained during Breitbart’s “Energy Dominance and AI” policy event in Washington, D.C., which also featured Interior Secretary and Chairman of the National Energy Dominance Council Doug Burgum and Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA).
The sentiment is reflected in the mission of Build American AI, a nonprofit organization that aims to cut through the myths about AI while advocating for American leadership through a variety of measures – from working with federal agencies to ensuring lawmakers know and tell the “positive story” of AI and its potential.
Leamer explained the stakes and how he sees the struggle for AI supremacy unfolding.
“I think it’s a two-front war. One is communicating to the American people and demonstrating to the American people [that] these are job opportunities in America. There’s economic opportunity and a boon that we can see here that’s coming to fruition,” Leamer said, stressing the importance of American leadership.
The second front is “build[ing] out capacity for future of AI,” he continued. “It’s like data centers and revamping our energy grid, but also setting the rules of the road, so it’s our framework people are following not not others.”
Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) also highlighted the significance of the AI revolution in America, deeming it the “most consequential moment in our lifetimes”and stressing the importance of stepping up to the challenge before China does.
“Just think about it. Has there ever been a moment in human history where the pace of change has been so fast and accelerating?” the Republican senator asked during the Breitbart policy event, pointing out the “breakneck speed” at which AI is evolving and disrupting sectors across the economy. He explained how AI and energy go hand in hand and called for his home state of Pennsylvania to serve as a leader in AI, keeping America front and center in the race rather than the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“We’re in a race — not just with China, but we’re in a race to have the energy capability to keep up. And as I tell our governor, Governor [Josh] Shapiro, who’s a Democrat in Pennsylvania, I say we’re also in a race with Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, and Texas, because the capital needed to support the energy infrastructure,” he said.
Those points coincide with Build American AI’s goal of advancing “pro-innovation policies that build trust in technology, boost America’s competitiveness, and ensure U.S. leadership in the transformative technologies of tomorrow.”
It is also crucial, Leamer said, to help U.S. lawmakers understand that AI offers “so much promise and opportunity for their constituents,” describing the technology as a “catalyst for unimaginable economic wealth and abundance.”
He added, “And we kind of have to cut through all the myths out there about it, to help policymakers see that we need a national framework to allow America to take the lead, but then also need to empower entrepreneurs around the country to leverage this technology to create new ideas and new things.”
After Trump signed an executive order in December calling for a national policy framework on AI regulation, Leamer told Breitbart News the move made “clear that creating a coherent AI national framework is a top priority.”
“There must be only One Rulebook if we are going to continue to lead in AI,” Trump wrote at the time, pushing against excessive regulatory burdens that could vary state to state, creating a “patchwork” of rules.