{"id":119514,"date":"2025-09-05T00:21:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T00:21:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/119514\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T00:21:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T00:21:05","slug":"be-best-bots-melania-trump-and-tech-ceos-discuss-saturating-us-schools-with-ai-melania-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/119514\/","title":{"rendered":"Be Best, bots: Melania Trump and tech CEOs discuss saturating US schools with AI | Melania Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melania Trump<\/a> has turned her attention from her \u201cBe Best\u201d anti-bullying campaign to the nation\u2019s best bots for tots.<\/p>\n

The first lady welcomed some of the US\u2019s foremost tech leaders \u2013 and a few bit players \u2013 to the East Wing of the White House on Thursday to inaugurate a taskforce on artificial intelligence and schools as part of an initiative dubbed the \u201cPresidential AI Challenge\u201d. The event concerned how to integrate AI into childhood education.<\/p>\n

Joining Trump at a horseshoe-shaped table set in front of gold candelabras and American flags were various department heads, including education secretary Linda McMahon; Michael Kratsios, director of the office of science and technology policy; and David Sacks, the venture capitalist now serving as the White House\u2019s cryptocurrency and AI czar. Tech CEOs seated with her included Google<\/a>\u2019s Sundar Pichai and IBM\u2019s Arvind Krishna. OpenAI\u2019s Sam Altman<\/a> was spotted in the crowd but gave no remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful event today,\u201d Trump said as she kicked off the meeting. \u201cWe are living in a world of wonder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump took a moment to marvel at the advances of modern technology. She eschewed any dystopian visions of the future \u2013 or the present moment, when AI companies have been accused of fomenting teen mental illness and taking recent grads\u2019 jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cCars now steer themselves through our cities, robots hold steady hands in the operating room and drones are defining the future of war,\u201d she said. \u201cThe robots are here. Our future is no longer science fiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The meeting was part of an all-day slate of events to promote Donald Trump\u2019s AI initiative<\/a>. Striking a far more bellicose tone compared with the first lady\u2019s breathless wonder, the president\u2019s initiative text states that the US is in a \u201crace to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence\u201d and \u201cunder President Trump, our nation will win\u201d. Along with the first lady\u2019s AI challenge, which invites all students and K-12 educators to use and promote AI<\/a>, the government\u2019s initiative includes a series of executive orders aimed at fostering the technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

McMahon said one of the Department of Education\u2019s goals was to integrate AI into school curriculums across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not one of those things to be afraid of,\u201d McMahon said. \u201cLet\u2019s embrace it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several tech-industry watchdogs criticized Melania Trump\u2019s White House event, saying it was dangerous to promote a technology that had pushed youth to kill themselves<\/a> and engage in disordered eating and other forms of risky behavior and self-harm. This comes as the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday that it was investigating OpenAI and other AI companies<\/a> for the impact their chatbots have on children\u2019s mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs public outrage against their lethal products continues to grow, big tech CEOs are seeking shelter behind President Trump, hoping to buy their way out of the many lawsuits and legislation coming to hold them accountable,\u201d said Sacha Haworth, executive director of the Tech Oversight Project.<\/p>\n

Tech companies pledge to bring AI to students nationwide<\/p>\n

During the first lady\u2019s afternoon meeting, she did not mention any of the harms AI has caused, but rather touted the technology, saying it would be the \u201cgreatest engine of progress in the history of the United States of America\u201d.<\/p>\n

The tech CEOs seated at the table also spoke, thanking the first lady for her work to bring artificial intelligence to children nationwide.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a real honor for me to be here,\u201d said Google\u2019s Pichai. \u201cYou\u2019re really inspiring young people to use technology in extraordinary ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Pichai said Google was imagining a future where every student \u201ccan learn anything in the world\u201d. He said the company was actively working to set up systems to make AI more accessible in schools around the country. IBM\u2019s Krishna said IBM was pledging to teach AI skills to 2 million workers in the US.<\/p>\n

Cameron Wilson, the president of Code.org, who was also at the table, said his company would \u201cengage 25 million learners\u201d with artificial intelligence and that the company\u2019s goal was to \u201ctransform our education system so students can thrive in AI\u201d.<\/p>\n

The White House said it had received more than 135 pledges from companies to support AI education in the US. Those include Microsoft, Amazon and other tech companies. Microsoft announced<\/a> on Thursday that it was hosting free AI trainings and offering expanded access to its AI tools in schools. Amazon announced it was helping educators use AI.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is corruption in the Rose Garden\u2019<\/p>\n

The day was scheduled to culminate with a dinner in the White House\u2019s revamped Rose Garden, where Silicon Valley\u2019s top luminaries were expected to be in attendance. Those included Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg<\/a>, Apple CEO Tim Cook<\/a>, Microsoft founder Bill Gates<\/a> and OpenAI CEO Altman, according to an invite list seen by the Hill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Glaringly absent from the list was Elon Musk, who posted on X<\/a> that he had been invited but \u201cunfortunately could not attend\u201d.<\/p>\n

Haworth, from the Tech Oversight Project, contended: \u201cThis is corruption in the Rose Garden.\u201d<\/p>\n

The watchdog group Demand Progress said the day\u2019s events showed how much power the tech industry now has in Washington DC.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonoring these self-serving, predatory executives in the first-ever event at the newly renovated Rose Garden is an obscene metaphor for who really runs this country,\u201d said Emily Peterson-Cassin, policy director for Demand Progress. \u201cIf the administration\u2019s top officials really cared about the people, they would stop these big tech execs from unleashing dangerously underdeveloped AI on us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melania Trump has turned her attention from her \u201cBe Best\u201d anti-bullying campaign to the nation\u2019s best bots for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-119514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}