Trump's Science Medals Go to Musk and Huang: Where Are Altman and Amodei?

Overview of the Awards

President Trump will award six prominent technology leaders the nation's highest science and technology honors on Thursday during the White House's 'Science: A New Golden Age Summit'. The awards include the National Medal of Science and the Technology Medal. The recipients of the National Medal of Science are Elon Musk, CEO of $TSLA Tesla and $SPCX SpaceX, Sergey Brin, Google co-founder, Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO, and Lisa Su, AMD CEO. The Technology Medal will be awarded to Michael Dell, Dell Technologies CEO, and Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO.

The Exclusion of Altman and Amodei

The White House has not explained the picks for the awards. However, it is notable that OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei, the best-known AI lab chiefs, are not included on the list. Altman and Amodei have been vocal about the potential risks and benefits of AI, with Altman stating that AI is opening a 'new era of discovery'. Amodei has urged a slower pace for the development of the most powerful AI, while Trump has rejected that argument, citing the need to maintain America's lead in AI development.

The Ceremony and its Focus

The ceremony will take place at the White House and will focus on superintelligence, or AI that outperforms humans at most tasks. The event will bring together the heads of companies that are shaping the future of AI, including ChatGPT and Claude. The absence of the heads of these companies from the list has sparked speculation about the White House's priorities and its approach to AI development.