Trump signs voluntary AI accord, rejects limits on US development
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he and a large group of artificial intelligence industry leaders had signed a voluntary accord at the White House that would include internal and external reviews of the technology. Details of the accord were not immediately available.
Earlier in the day, Trump said the US government would not limit the development of AI, describing it as a technology bigger than the Industrial Revolution. Speaking at the unveiling of America.gov, an AI chatbot meant to help Americans navigate government services, he said the United States was leading in the field and framed the race as one with China.
After a White House lunch with top technology executives, Trump told reporters outside the West Wing, "I think I'm seeing tremendous self-policing. And they understand that they have to self-police." He later said there had been broad agreement on "self-regulation" by AI developers, adding, "and we automatically have regulation with the Department of Justice, the FBI, all of that."
At the launch event for America.gov, Trump said, "I will never stifle the growth of a technology that will be bigger than the industrial revolution. We can't stifle it, and we're leading by a lot."
Those at the White House on Tuesday included Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, whose X platform has its own AI model, Grok. According to a seating chart posted by Trump on Truth Social, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sat to Trump's right at the lunch, while Musk sat to his left. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also attended.
Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson were also present.
Trump's strong backing for AI stood in contrast to recent warnings from some industry leaders. Amodei had earlier this month called for leading firms to slow development. Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have also argued for giving safety measures time to catch up as companies reported growing examples of AI agents going rogue.
Other executives, especially Huang and Zuckerberg, have played down concerns about runaway AI and stressed that each company is responsible for ensuring the safety of its products.
The unveiling of America.gov came during a day-long Washington event at which several Trump administration officials spoke of a "Golden Age" driven by what Trump prefers to call "super intelligence" rather than artificial intelligence. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said America.gov could soon allow people to apply for a first-time passport fully online, without the in-person visit currently required at a processing centre.
Trump also said the executives had agreed to address bipartisan opposition to data centres coming up in communities across the country by offering more financial support to local schools or by taking steps to reduce energy costs. "You're going to see, data centres are going to be very popular," he said. If the opposition continued, he added, "they'll be forced to go overseas or other locations."
Separately on Tuesday, Altman said in a television interview that OpenAI was placing increasing emphasis on safety after halting the rollout of a new model a day earlier over safety concerns. "We are pacing our progress, which includes sometimes not training a model," he told CNBC. "We have to do these in a way where we can make very confident safety cases and claims, so that people don't have a bunch of anxiety."
Trump also cast the development of AI as a global contest between the United States and China, saying there would be a winner and a loser, with no "second place". Although the two countries agreed last week to set up a channel to handle AI-related incidents during Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Washington, Trump said he did not want too much cooperation with Beijing. "I didn't want to do anything, because we're leading. Why would I want to do anything?" he said.
In sum, Trump used the White House events to signal support for rapid AI development, announce a voluntary accord with industry leaders and push self-regulation, even as some executives continued to call for caution and stronger safety checks.
