TOI correspondent from Washington: US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday picked Chennai-born venture capitalist and Elon Musk confidant Sriram Krishnan as the White House advisor on Artificial Intelligence policy, triggering consternation among some MAGA radicals about immigrant roles in the incoming administration.
Trump stated in a social media post that Sriram Krishnan” may concentrate on ensuring ongoing American leadership in A. I. and contribute to the shaping and coordination of A. I. plan across government.” He noted that Microsoft’s alleged A. I. czar was a founding member of Windows Azure.
Krishnan immediately led item groups at Twitter, Yahoo!, and Facebook, before returning to Twitter-turned-X in 2022 after Musk bought it to help him recover the system, when he was now a general partner of the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz. The agency’s key main Marc Andreesen, the founder of Netscape, has been a big Trump follower, and has, like Elon Musk, been camping at Mar-a-Lago to assist with the change.
Trump also mentioned that Sriram will work closely with David Sacks and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, along with another South African-American named Elon Musk as the White House crypto emperor.
Krishnan acknowledged Trump’s statement, saying he is “honored to be able to provide our nation and ensure ongoing American administration in AI” amid concern from some of the more nationalist MAGA crowd on social media.
One critic reacted to Krishnan’s recent social media posts, saying that” people should tell him that AI doesn’t stand for trade Another Indian,” even as MAGA nativists cut out his earlier calls for H1B visa holders to launch businesses or transition to businessperson visas, among others.
Krishnan also called for quick green accounts for architecture and the hard sciences in a “wishlist” he posted on December 3. He had previously stated in an earlier post that “anything to remove country caps for green cards and unlock qualified immigration would be massive.”
H1-B visa opponents and it immigration stoked at the idea. ” This has nothing to do with experienced emigration. This is due to @sriramk having tribal loyalty to his colleague Indians who have abused the H-1B immigration system to obtain emigration benefits, a team called Project for Immigration Reform clapped up.
” The majority of H-1Bs are Indians who have arrived through an IT system shop, displacing American workers. And Sriram wants to encourage this behavior with “green accounts””? it asked.
Another online group called @USTechWorkers, which has long criticized the H1B system, described it as” a very questionable appointment by @realDonaldTrump,” noting that” @sriramk’s pet issue is expanding the H-1B visa program and removing country cap quotas for Green Cards. Not at all America First.
But, Trump’s selection of Krishnan was welcomed by the broader software commentariat. ” The visit of a tech-savvy chief like Krishnan reflects the Trump administration’s acknowledgment of AI as a critical factor for global competitiveness. For companies, this may take regulatory quality or, conversely, added investigation in places such as information sharing, intellectual property, and the ethical use of AI”, the book CIO noted.
