An interview with Sriram Krishnan, who says “there will not be an FDA for AI” under Trump, blames the AI backlash on the industry's “doomer” messaging, and more
Sriram Krishnan tells the FT the president is against a centralised regulator as AI backlash grows
Context & Ripple Effects
Related coverage has positioned Sriram Krishnan as a White House AI adviser focused on countering “woke” AI and competing with China. His rejection of a centralised AI regulator is therefore consistent with an administration-level preference for a lighter-touch, competition-oriented posture.
The comments arrive as industry figures acknowledge greater-than-expected resistance to AI adoption and warn that the “doomer” framing is gaining ground. The policy dispute is increasingly also a contest over how the public interprets AI’s risks and benefits.
First-order effects
- A centralised US AI regulator is less likely to be the administration’s chosen response to AI concerns, leaving companies without the prospect of a single FDA-style federal gatekeeper under this approach.
- The White House’s AI messaging will more directly contest risk-focused industry narratives, putting advisers such as Krishnan at the centre of the political response to the backlash.
Second-order effects
- AI developers and executives gain an incentive to frame deployment around productivity, competitiveness and practical benefits rather than existential-risk warnings, since that framing is more aligned with the administration’s stance.
- Opponents of lighter-touch governance may shift pressure toward other policymaking venues and existing institutions, while firms still face a fragmented compliance and trust challenge rather than a single clear regulatory pathway.
Third-order effects
- If this posture persists, US AI policy may develop around national-competitiveness goals and dispersed oversight rather than a dedicated central safety agency, increasing the importance of political alignment in AI governance.
- The industry’s ability to sustain adoption may depend as much on resolving public concerns over AI’s distributional effects as on technical progress; anti-regulatory policy alone does not remove that legitimacy challenge.
The trend: AI governance is becoming a broader political battle over whether competitiveness and adoption, or centralised precautionary oversight, should define the US response to the technology.