President Trump Asks A.I. Titans to Police Themselves

President Trump summoned the world’s most powerful technology executives to the White House and praised the assembled billionaires as “very brilliant” minds who wanted to make the world a better place through job creation, the construction of data centers, and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. President Trump faces questions about whether A.I. should be regulated, and particularly whether restrictions should be put in place to protect humans from technology that has learned to outmaneuver existing safeguards. But in the end, convening all of those billions and all of that brainpower did not result in a commitment to formal regulation. Instead, they signed a voluntary agreement to adopt safety policies that include risk reviews, auditing and evaluations of systems by third parties. The one-page document is short on details and relies on the companies to follow through with their promises. It is not an official order, and it is unclear who would enforce the guidance. It was signed by President Trump and the leaders of Anthropic, Google, Meta, Nvidia, OpenAI, and SpaceXAI. They also agreed to adopt Trump’s preferred rebranding of A.I.: “super intelligence.” “This is going to be all for the good, and we’re going to have it be nice and safe,” President Trump said. “And they’re really going to be policing each other, and that’s the way it works.” Asked if the agreement would be binding, President Trump said, “I think it’s morally binding.” President Trump promised not to hamper the artificial-intelligence industry with regulations, doubling down on his light-touch approach despite growing calls from Silicon Valley and the public for new guardrails. “I will never stifle the growth of technology that will be bigger than the industrial revolution,” he said. The Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation and existing authorities are sufficient to hold accountable bad actors using AI for nefarious purposes, he said.