In June 2024, during a campaign stop in Las Vegas, then-candidate Donald Trump met with OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and the company's then-chief operating officer, Brad Lightcap, who presented the Republican with a preview version of the Sora image and video generation tool developed by the artificial intelligence startup — a product that has since been discontinued. During the meeting, Trump and Brockman used the tool to visualize a golf course on the Moon.
The meeting, however, took a more serious turn when Trump raised a direct concern related to national security. The Republican asked what would happen if foreign adversaries used artificial intelligence to create deepfakes and impersonate him. Brockman and Lightcap assured that deepfake mitigation techniques, such as digital watermarking, could minimize these risks.
This exchange between Trump and OpenAI executives foreshadowed the dilemma the president currently faces regarding artificial intelligence. The central question revolves around how to protect the United States' current advantage over China in developing this technology, while the government grapples with the security risks associated with the misuse of AI.
