President Donald Trump's new White House AI czar Jay Clayton gave some fresh pushback on calls to slow artificial intelligence development.
In a Closing Bell interview with CNBC's David Faber on Wednesday, Clayton argued that U.S. leadership and stronger safeguards can move forward side by side.
"I think there's a real false dichotomy in that there's a trade-off of speed and safety," Clayton said. "American leadership is absolutely essential to safety."
Clayton added that AI developers need to establish controls and monitoring in a way that both satisfies the American public and the companies that are building the technology.
"This is a technology that's coming, and we must control it," he said. "We're going to hold the industry to that commitment."
Appearing alongside Clayton was Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, who agreed with that argument and said security and engineering challenges should be balanced together with the development of frontier models.
"The challenge is not to slow the technology down," Arora said. "The challenge is to make sure that we put the right safety and security harnesses around this technology."
Asked why the United States needs to stay ahead of China, Clayton cited issues like cyberattacks and hacking, saying that critical infrastructure will become weaker if competitors with freer rein beat the U.S. to the punch.
One of Clayton's biggest responsibilities in his new role is to examine the risks and opportunities involved with AI.
In an Oct. 3 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Clayton revealed that his new task force would have 120 days to deliver a report that recommends how the federal government should oversee the technology.