Trump postponed an executive order that would have introduced stricter rules on artificial intelligence. The Maga world is divided
The publication of Magnificent humanity it could help fuel the debate on artificial intelligence that has long characterized the Maga world.
Last week, Donald Trump has suddenly postponed the signing of an executive order that would have theoretically introduced regulations, however mild, to the AI sector. Second Politicalit would have been the chairman of the President’s Council of Advisors on Technology who convinced him of the step backwards, David Sackswho would have pointed out that any limitations would have weakened the USA in its competition with China. It’s no mystery that Sacks both linked to figures in the US hyper-technological sector and, as Peter Thiel and Elon Muskview government regulations in the AI sector with hostility. Regulations that the founder of Palantir has identified for years as the reign of that Antichrist who, in the name of the slogan “peace and security”, would aim to create a unified world characterized by technological stagnation.
On the other hand, however, there is a part of the Maga universe that has expressed fear for this sector. In mid-May, Steve Bannontogether with about sixty other signatories, sent a letter to Trump which called for the introduction of rules for the development of artificial intelligence. “We support proposed policies that require mandatory testing, evaluation, verification and government approvals of potentially dangerous frontier AI systems prior to deployment,” the letter read. It is interesting to note that various Protestant pastors were also among the signatories of the letter. After all, the same Leo XIVin his encyclical, called for limits, writing: «Asking for prudence, rigorous checks, and sometimes even a slowdown in the adoption of AI does not mean being against progress, but exercising responsible care towards the human family».
It is no coincidence that, yesterday, US newspapers of various orientations – from conservative New York Post to the liberal Washington Post – they argued that the encyclical should be read as a blow both to the big names in Silicon Valley and (at least in part) to the US administration itself. NBC News also said that the new papal document would mark “another potential point of friction” between the Holy See and the White House. Moreover, large sectors of the Christian world fear a drift marked by transhumanism: a drift against which the same Magnificent humanity. In this respect, it should not be forgotten that Trumpin the 2024 elections, he won, winning both the evangelical vote and a majority of the Catholic vote.
The American president must therefore face a significant tension within the Maga universe. On the one hand, the hyper-technological sector tends to limit the regulation of AI in the name of geopolitical competition with Beijing; on the other, the more “traditionalist” Maga point the finger at the risks linked to Artificial Intelligence: from the issue of surveillance to the impacts on working class. Above all, he embodies this dilemma JD Vance. The American vice president has thus far shown a complex, if not wavering, position on AI. Last year he criticized the EU for regulating the sector. However, in February he stated: «I am concerned about the use of artificial intelligence by companies to surveil Americans. I’m worried about privacy violations, I’m very worried about political bias.” Vance it is, after all, very close to Thiel. However, its electoral base is made up of those blue-collar workers of the rust belt who fear the socioeconomic impacts of AI. This is a knot that the vice president is called to resolve quickly, also by virtue of his presidential ambitions in view of 2028.
And be careful: the debate on AI in Trumpism is not only about Christianity but also about libertarianism. The latter is against regulations in the private sector, but at the same time is hostile to government uses of artificial intelligence: starting from the question of surveillance and that of strengthening the Pentagon’s apparatus. This is a short circuit that had already emerged last year, when Muskfollowing the breakup (then recomposed) with Trumphe was convinced to create a party, courting Republican-leaning parliamentarians libertarian as Rand Paul And Tom Massie.
In short, the current American president could find himself faced with a dilemma not so dissimilar to the one he faced Harry Truman with the Manhattan Project: a puzzle that navigates between domestic politics, national security, moral philosophy and even theology.
Empires, by their nature, are called to give meaning to the destiny of an era. And this meaning cannot transcend the fundamental tension that arises between power and eschatology. A tension that can never be definitively resolved, but through which the distinction between catastrophe and salvation passes. From this perspective, the sometimes harsh dialectic between the Holy See and the White House is not necessarily fruitless, but it can contribute to giving a horizon of meaning to the destiny of this era, to avoid both the mortification of human dignity and the deadly tyranny that the establishment of a universal state would inevitably entail.
