Vice President JD Vance on Thursday expressed worry about the use of artificial intelligence in warfare, urging graduating Air Force cadets not to let technology supersede their judgment.
“As AI transforms the battlefield — in some ways positively, in some ways not — I ask that you be jealous and selfish about your role as the decision-maker in warfare,” Vance said in a commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “Use technology to make you better, but never submit to it. You are the masters of warfare. And both your minds, but also your hearts, are the opposite of artificial.
Vance’s admonition came the same week that Pope Leo XIV issued a theological document warning about unchecked advancements in AI. The vice president praised the pope’s work on the document in an interview with NBC News and referenced it in his speech Thursday. Vance, one of the Trump administration’s most enthusiastic champions of AI, also referenced the recent jeers that have rained down on commencement speakers who have focused on the topic.
“Now, you can’t boo me. I’m the vice president of the United States,” Vance joked. “But your fellow Americans are, understandably, they’re worried about AI, about how it will affect the labor market, how it will distribute resources, and how it has fundamentally changed how we interact with one another — our social lives. But the thing I worry about most with AI is how it will change warfare.”
Vance, who worked in venture capital before entering politics, has long argued against excessive regulation on AI and promoted what he sees as its benefits. But with polls finding voters concerned about AI’s rise, Vance has approached the issue with more public skepticism in recent months. He has stressed a need, for example, to ensure that new AI models protect businesses and consumers from cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
“The technology … just raises such profound questions for how we interact with one another, what kind of skills we need in the workforce, the kind of wars that we’ll fight and how we’ll fight our wars,” Vance said Tuesday, responding to a question about the pope’s encyclical on AI. “I think we really need moral leadership to think through those questions, and that’s exactly what the church is the best leader to do.”
Speaking Thursday to about 900 cadets graduating and commissioning as Air Force officers, Vance said that for all of AI’s advancements, “one of the things that makes Americans unique — that makes you, as war fighters, unique — is that we wage war justly.”
Vance added that “if the warfare of the future is to live up to the moral values of our ancestors, decisions over life and death must be made by humans and not machines.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has battled with AI company Anthropic, which has resisted the Trump administration’s attempt to lift guardrails on how its products can be used for military purposes, including in lethal autonomous weapons.
Just weeks after taking office as vice president last year, Vance delivered a fiery speech at the international AI Action Summit in Paris, chiding European allies for their heavy-handed approach to AI regulation and advising them “to look to this new frontier with optimism rather than trepidation.”
Over the past few months, Vance has become increasingly focused on how to manage AI’s growing capabilities. In early April, he and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called leading tech CEOs to learn about the cybersecurity implications of the latest AI models, according to CNBC.
Several days later, AI company Anthropic announced that its newest model, called Mythos Preview, found thousands of critical cybersecurity vulnerabilities across common software applications. The announcement kicked off a new level of urgency to define the administration’s AI policy, with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, national cyber director Sean Cairncross and others becoming more involved in AI deliberations.
Since then, different factions within the White House have battled over how to approach new threats from powerful AI systems. Some, like Bessent, have advocated for a closer watch over powerful AI systems, while others, like former AI czar David Sacks, have campaigned for a lighter-touch approach.
At a White House press conference last Tuesday, Vance emphasized that the administration is collaborating with leading tech companies “to make sure that the American people are as safe as possible.” Vance also nodded to an upcoming executive order that was crafted in response to cybersecurity threats from models like Mythos Preview.
But President Donald Trump decided at the last minute not to sign the order, which would have implemented a voluntary mechanism for the U.S. government to test the latest AI models from leading AI companies.