EU needs to abandon AI ‘doomerism,’ White House official says

NEW DELHI — A top United States official on Wednesday told the European Union to focus more on innovation in artificial intelligence — and less on rules.

“I do think the atmosphere in the EU needs to change and be more focused on innovation, less focused on governance and less focused on doomerism,” said Sriram Krishnan, the White House’s senior policy adviser on artificial intelligence, at an event of the Tony Blair Institute on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit.

Krishnan reiterated the U.S. opposition to the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act, which was adopted in 2024 and aims to mitigate risks associated with the technology.

“The EU AI Act, which I have ranted about before this job, during this job, maybe after this job … it’s not really conducive to an entrepreneur who wants to build basic technology,” he said.

One example, Krishnan said, was Peter Steinberger, the Austrian coder behind the personal AI assistant platform OpenClaw who is moving to the U.S. to join OpenAI.

Krishnan was much more positive about India’s regulatory approach, which he praised as “pro-innovation.”

World leaders, including EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen and French President Emmanuel Macron, will gather on Thursday in New Delhi. A draft of the declaration of the summit, seen by POLITICO, didn’t include the word safety.

Ever since the first AI Summit in the United Kingdom in 2023, the series of annual summits has gradually shifted from discussions on AI governance to business and investment deals between the industry and governments.