Sriram Krishnan, Donald Trump’s outgoing AI advisor, calls out AI leaders for ‘terrible job’: ‘It is own due to your own doomer messaging that …

Sriram Krishnan, the outgoing White House AI advisor to President Donald Trump, has put the blame on tech leaders of elite artificial intelligence (AI) Labs in the US for fueling a massive public backlash against the technology through their own ‘dystopian and doomer’ corporate messaging. In an in-depth interview with the Financial Times, the 42-year-old former venture capitalist said tech leaders are directly responsible for making everyday Americans deeply fearful of the future.“The AI sector has done a terrible job of explaining the benefits of the technology,” Krishnan stated, pointing out that breakthroughs like advanced medical diagnoses have been completely overshadowed by corporate fear-mongering.

The dangers of corporate ‘doomer messaging’

Krishnan argued that by constantly warning the public about apocalyptic scenarios, like massive jobs cuts and AI taking over humanity, tech CEOs have turned voters against their own products.“Leaders of American AI labs have focused so much on the dystopian narrative and scenarios, whether it is job loss, whether it is existential risk… that a lot of people are going: well, I don’t know if I want this,” Krishnan explained.According to Krishnan, everyday citizens are pushing back because they feel excluded from the massive wealth being generated by the boom.“Voters want to feel they have a seat at the table and this is not just two or three companies becoming incredibly powerful and wealthy,” he was quoted as saying.

Supporting a ‘public stake’ in AI

To combat this public distrust, Krishnan threw his full support behind a White House proposal to force top AI companies to donate equity stakes directly to the American public. President Trump recently discussed these plans with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.While Silicon Valley executives have furiously pushed back against the idea, calling it as a form of “backdoor nationalization” – Krishnan insists it is the only way to get the public on board.“I do think some way for regular people to feel like, OK, when I use this model, or when I see the graphs going up and I watch on CNBC, I am benefiting. I think that is good. Americans need to feel that AI is something which is empowering them,” Krishnan said.

‘No FDA for AI’ under Trump

Beyond public messaging, Krishnan used the interview to outline the administration’s long-term regulatory stance, vowing that the White House will never create a formal, bureaucratic licensing regime for software developers.“There will not be an FDA for AI. Setting up a centralised agency requiring a team of lawyers before you can get a model out would put sand in the gears of the AI revolution. That is never, never going to happen under President Trump,” Krishnan declared, referencing the rigid federal agency that regulates food and prescription drugs.Krishnan, who worked closely with tech billionaire Elon Musk and AI Tsar David Sacks before joining the administration early last year, has been a central architect in blocking state-level tech regulations.