Vice President Vance urged developers to 'stop building Frankenstein' as the Trump administration bets on voluntary self-regulation over federal oversight for artificial intelligence risks.
The Trump administration has made its position on AI regulation about as clear as it can get: you’re on your own, tech companies. Vice President JD Vance used a series of public remarks in mid-September 2026 to tell AI developers that the White House expects them to manage their own safety risks rather than looking to Washington for guardrails.
President Trump, meanwhile, has dismissed warnings about AI posing existential threats as a “hoax,” framing the technology instead as potentially the “greatest economic development engine in history.”
The self-regulation playbook #
Vance’s remarks, delivered over several days from September 16 to 18, carried a colorful warning for AI developers. He urged companies to “stop building Frankenstein,” a phrase that neatly captures the administration’s view: if you’re creating something potentially dangerous, the responsibility to keep it in check falls squarely on your shoulders.
The administration backed up the philosophy with a June 2, 2026 executive order that established a voluntary federal review framework for high-risk AI models. Developers can submit cutting-edge systems for government review, but the process was deliberately streamlined. The vetting period was shortened from an initially proposed 90 days to a maximum of 30 days.
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Some major AI companies have already started developing their own internal safety mechanisms. OpenAI and Anthropic have proposed self-regulatory measures including “embedded evaluators,” essentially internal watchdogs tasked with assessing model risks before deployment.
A divided industry responds #
The AI field is far from unified on whether self-regulation is sufficient. Some members of Congress have pushed for independent oversight mechanisms, though those proposals face an uphill battle given the administration’s clear preference for partnership over policing. The political calculus is straightforward: the US is locked in a technology race with China, and imposing heavy compliance burdens on domestic AI companies could hand competitors an advantage.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our