
Trump Backs Bold AI Agenda. What Are the Risks and Rewards?
By McGregor McCance
The new administration’s first official actions related to artificial intelligence signaled clear preferences for how it wants the technology to advance: quickly, on a massive scale, and without much oversight.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday wiped away former President Joe Biden’s executive order that called for a balance between positive impacts of AI’s growth and the need for ethical guardrails and consideration of risks to privacy and job loss. Tuesday also brought news of a coalition of private companies celebrated by Trump for plans to invest as much as $500 billion over the coming years in data centers and other AI-related infrastructure.
After a presidential race that didn’t give much attention to AI, the technology suddenly appears front-and-center, producing both excitement and concern. The Darden Report checked in with University of Virginia Darden School of Business professors Mike Lenox and Tim Laseter for analysis. Lenox and Laseter are also affiliated with the LaCross Institute for Ethical Artificial Intelligence in Business, based at Darden.
Q: Tuesday was quite a splash as it relates to the new administration and the years ahead for AI. What does that say about AI’s place in the economy and society?

Professor Mike Lenox’s primary expertise is in the domain of technology strategy and policy.
Lenox: There is a broad race to drive and lead the development of advanced AI both among leading technology companies but also among nation-states, specifically China and the US. The fact that the announcement of this alliance between private businesses was made at the White House highlights the geo-political importance of AI.
Laseter: It also reinforces the needed scale of investment envisioned by the tech leaders to achieve the full potential of AI. AI is already changing the world of work, but we must also remember that investors, entrepreneurs and politicians can fall prey to “the hype cycle.” For example, in his 2013 State of the Union speech President Obama stated that 3D printing “has the potential to revolutionize the way we make almost everything.” AI has passed through multiple hype cycles since the term was first coined in 1955.
Q: What are the potential positive benefits of having such unbridled investment and momentum around the growth of AI?
Lenox: The belief is that AI will be a massive transformational technology impacting many, if not most, aspects of our lives. There is incredible potential for driving value creation, creating operational efficiencies, and innovating solutions to pressing challenges. We have been on a 50+ year journey with artificial intelligence. The developments over the past 24 months suggest that we are entering into the steep part of the technology S-curve where we see exponential improvement in the technology. These are exciting times.
Laseter: Much like the dawning of the internet 25 years ago, businesses are experimenting to find the “use cases” that will add real value. Many of those experiments failed during the period of excessive hype but ultimately successes emerged as technology and consumer preferences evolved. For example, I coauthored a piece called “The Last Mile to Nowhere” predicting the failure of same day delivery of grocery items by startups such as Webvan, Kozmo and UrbanFetch. Twenty years later, COVID triggered rapid adoption of home delivery enabled by smart phones and gig workers that did not exist in 2000. The same will happen with AI.
Q: What are the potential negative consequences that we should be worried about?
Lenox: These are also scary times. The potential for negative consequences to AI are manifest: job displacements acerbating income inequality, market concentration due to network effects in the underlying technology, the potential for bias in algorithms, and the social implications of fast evolving human-machine interactions. One area that I am researching is how the demand for AI broadly, and Generative AI specifically, is driving a massive growth in demand for computing. One of the big bottlenecks in deploying advanced chips, like those from Nvidia, is building and powering data centers. There is a race for electricity to power these massive new data centers. How we build out this new electrical generation in a way that is expedient and sustainable is a critical question.
Laseter: Again, I reflect on history and the long-term looking forward. Splitting the atom launched the nuclear era and a cold war seeking to find balance between the superpowers of the time. As I wrote a decade ago in an article titled “Management in the Second Machine Age” the industrial revolution fundamentally transformed the workforce: one third of the US workforce were employed in agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry. In the 2012 census, less than 1% of the workforce were employed in “farming fishing, and forestry occupations.” AI will trigger similar disruptions, but we aspire to inspire ethical leaders to ensure the innovations do more good than harm.
Q: What opportunities and responsibilities does this create for the Darden School of Business and the LaCross AI Institute?

Professor Tim Laseter teaches courses in operations strategy, innovation and emerging technology at Darden.
Lenox: Development of AI is moving quickly. At Darden and the LaCross AI Institute, we are positioned to help provide guidance on both the opportunities and challenges with AI. How do we develop AI in the best way to advance society while avoiding the downsides that the technology presents?
Laseter: We are training the next generation of business leaders who will drive the adoption of this disruptive technology. Thinking about the likely progress of technologies and understanding the underlying economic drivers is challenging in an emerging field where prices do not reflect the underlying cost. I believe the quote from the science fiction author William Gibson: “The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed.” More importantly, in my role as a UVA AI Faculty Guide, I remind my students and my colleagues of a quote with unclear origins: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether to attribute it to Peter Drucker or Abraham Lincoln!
The University of Virginia Darden School of Business prepares responsible global leaders through unparalleled transformational learning experiences. Darden’s graduate degree programs (MBA, MSBA and Ph.D.) and Executive Education & Lifelong Learning programs offered by the Darden School Foundation set the stage for a lifetime of career advancement and impact. Darden’s top-ranked faculty, renowned for teaching excellence, inspires and shapes modern business leadership worldwide through research, thought leadership and business publishing. Darden has Grounds in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Washington, D.C., area and a global community that includes 18,000 alumni in 90 countries. Darden was established in 1955 at the University of Virginia, a top public university founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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