Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine has warned that artificial intelligence development has become a Cold War-style arms race between the US and China, with neither country willing to slow down for fear of being left vulnerable. Speaking on the Alas Vine & Hitchens podcast, Vine compared the competitive rush to build ever more powerful AI systems to the development of nuclear weapons in the Second World War, arguing that the technology's risks are being overlooked because no country wants to blink first.

Vine's comments follow a wave of concern from within the AI industry itself: Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned last week, warning that neither Anthropic nor OpenAI is "acting responsibly" and that rapid progress could endanger humanity as soon as 2030, while Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging AI firms to slow the pace of development, citing rapid "recursive self-improvement" and a cybersecurity incident involving AI agents. Donald Trump has dismissed such warnings, telling reporters in Ireland that "negative forces" are exaggerating risks that "won't happen," and posting on Truth Social that a "strong and smart" US president is the only guardrail AI needs, while accusing Amodei of posing as a "perfect little angel."