Sriram Krishnan was never interested in policy. But after seeing a gap in AI knowledge at senior levels of government, he decided to lend his expertise to the tech-friendly Trump administration. Senior White House Policy Advisor on AI Sriram Krishnan joins Elad Gil and Sarah Guo to talk about America’s AI Action Plan, a recent executive order that outlines how America can win the AI race and maintain its AI supremacy. Sriram discusses why winning the AI race is important and what that looks like, as well as the core goals of the Action Plan that he helped to author. Together, they explore how AI is the latest iteration of American cultural exportation and soft power, the bottlenecks in upgrading America’s energy infrastructure, and the importance of America owning the “full stack” from GPUs and models to agents and software.

Chapters:

00:00 – Sriram Krishnan Introduction

01:00 – Sriram’s Role in Government

03:43 – Impetus for the America AI Action Plan

06:14 – What Winning the AI Race Looks Like

10:36 – Algorithms and Cultural Bias

12:26 – Main Tenets of the America AI Action Plan

19:13 – Infrastructure and Energy Needs for AI

22:56 – Manufacturing, Supply Chains, and AI

24:52 – Ensuring American Dominance in Robotics

26:30 – Translating Policy to Industry and the Economy

29:30 – Should the US Be a Technocracy?

32:33 – Understanding the Argument Against Open Source Models

36:07 – Conclusion