Washington (United States) (AFP) - President Donald Trump is an enthusiastic advocate for swift AI development in America, dismissing regulation as a curb on competing with China.

But some of Trump’s supporters in the MAGA world are skeptical of the new technology threatening to upend society with the possibility of machines replacing humans in many walks of life.

Amy Kremer, president of a group named Humans First, says US conservatives need to wake up to what she called the danger posed by artificial intelligence.

“There are more regulations on a ham sandwich that I can buy at a street corner in New York City or Washington, DC, than there is on AI,” said Kremer, a long-standing supporter of Trump and his Make America Great Again movement.

Dozens of activists, most of them conservatives, reached out recently to Trump in a letter initiated by Humans First and published by the news outlet Axios.

“America did not become the greatest nation in the world by allowing unelected elites to experiment on the public without safeguards or accountability,” the letter says.

The signatories included Kremer, who has supported Trump since his first White House win in 2016, and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

- A Trump about-face -

Bannon is one of the ideological gurus of the coalition that rose up around Trump as he went from flashy real estate mogul to norm-busting politician.

Bannon has called AI “the most dangerous technology in the history of mankind.”

He and other signatories of the letter urged Trump to make a decree mandating that new AI models undergo government testing before they are released to the public.

In a last-minute turnabout on May 21, Trump dropped the planned signing of a watered-down executive order on powerful AI models. The text called for voluntary industry controls on AI.

Fingers pointed at the president’s allies in Silicon Valley who oppose government oversight of the technology.

But on Tuesday, Trump quietly signed an order that creates a voluntary framework under which AI developers will share advanced models for up to 30 days with the government before public release. An earlier draft stipulated 90 days.

The 79-year-old billionaire has positioned himself as an advocate for rapid AI development.

He dismisses regulation as a constraint on US competitiveness with China, even as more and more Americans come out angrily against AI and the huge energy-consuming data centers needed to power it.

“You don’t hear much about it in Washington DC, but throughout the country it may be the number one issue right now,” Bannon said Tuesday on his podcast, urging Washington to listen to this outcry.

This revolt by people in both of American’s main parties is reminiscent of people protesting against the construction of low-income housing projects in their neighborhoods, said UCLA political science professor Megan Mullin.

- Rural anger -

But what makes this new movement different, she says, is that these data centers are often going up in rural areas where people are very attached to their communities and already feel “ignored or neglected by regular politics.”

In rural MAGA patches, the appearance of massive data centers which can gorge on water and electricity and create few new jobs “is activating that feeling of siege and resentment for folks who live in rural communities,” said Mullin.

Ever since he entered politics, Trump has sought to capitalize on the anger and frustration of such people who feel left behind by leaders they see as haughty, far-away political elites.

In the last three presidential elections, Trump triumphed in 90 percent of all rural counties in America, according to the Economic Innovation Group, a think tank.

His share of the rural vote grew from 59% in 2016 to 65% in 2020 and then 69% in 2024, according to Pew Research data.

- ‘Simmering roots’ -

Mullin said she sees “some simmering roots of an AI backlash” but not a strong one yet, so it is hard to foresee how this anger will play out.

But Trump’s fervent support for AI so far has not been enough to alienate his most enthusiastic backers. Kremer said of Trump, “I know his heart and soul is with the American people.”

Humans First hailed the new executive order but attached a warning.

“We cannot simply rely on the Big Tech extremists to voluntarily do what is right – it is clear at this point that the only thing they care about is money and power, not the American people.”