Tech CEOs sign 'morally binding' AI safety pledge at White House

Trump order replaces ‘AI’ with ‘Super Intelligence’ in federal communications

US President Donald Trump hosted leaders from OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, Meta and Google at the White House on Tuesday for what he called an “extraordinary gathering” of the leading figures in US technology. After a closed-door meeting, Trump took questions from the media for around 30 minutes alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson and the tech executives, telling reporters the executives had signed a “morally binding” document meant to serve as a “form of protection” from AI’s potential risks.

The accord was signed by Trump, Google boss Sundar Pichai, Anthropic chief Dario Amodei, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, SpaceX’s Elon Musk and Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang. “It’s almost like a constitution, in a way,” Trump said of the agreement. “And the biggest people in the world signed that, and I signed it as president.”

Under the agreement, which Trump posted on social media, the companies are responsible for ensuring the safety of their own technology. The firms also agreed to implement safeguards to keep their models operating as intended, quickly detect and fix any issues, work with “independent auditors” to assess whether their AI systems are working as intended, and ensure their platforms do not “hack or access technical systems in unintended ways.”

Trump told reporters he will set up a board to oversee the safety of AI tools but did not specify who would serve on it. The president has repeatedly downplayed concerns about AI’s risks, dismissing them as a “hoax.” He has said the only “guardrails” the industry needs is a “smart” president.

The summit came as OpenAI and Anthropic have in recent weeks called for tighter oversight of the industry and for a slowdown in development of the technology. On Monday, OpenAI said it had scrapped the release of its latest flagship AI model, GPT-6.1 Astra, over safety concerns. The company’s security controls have come under intense scrutiny after several high-profile incidents involving its technology, including its models accessing Australian government platforms without authorisation.

At the same summit, Trump reiterated his support for the rapid expansion of data centres, the computing infrastructure that powers AI. The rollout has drawn pushback around the country over concerns about electricity usage and potential impact on communities, and has emerged as a potential political obstacle for Trump’s Republican party ahead of the November midterm elections.

A Marist Poll survey conducted in partnership with NPR and PBS News earlier this month found that 65% of registered voters opposed data centres being built in their areas. Responding to those concerns, Trump said tech companies would work to make people “happy” about the construction.

“These big, powerful, very rich, very smart companies are going to be making massive contributions to communities,” Trump told reporters. He had previously said on social media that the only reason communities in the US should oppose data centres is if they “want to end up being backwards and poor.” “The good news is that there are plenty of other places that want them. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame,” he said.

Huang from Nvidia, which produces computer chips essential for running AI, said after the meeting that data centres should be called “super intelligence factories.” The facilities are “reindustrialising the United States,” creating jobs across the economy, he added.

Also on Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order instructing US government departments and agencies to start using the terms “SI” and “Super Intelligence” and to no longer acknowledge the term “artificial intelligence.” SI will take the place of AI in “official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents within the executive branch,” the order said.

“As these capabilities continue to improve, they increasingly represent not merely artificial intelligence, but a new era of Super Intelligence,” the order said. During an address to the United Nations General Assembly last week, Trump said the word “artificial” made the technology “sound fake.”

Some tech leaders and people close to the president have already started using the term. Zuckerberg said on social media on Monday that “We believe superintelligence will create significant new opportunities for all people and businesses.” On Wednesday, Musk reposted a clip of tech executives gathered around Trump at the White House with the words “Super Intelligence.”

But some experts said after Trump’s UN speech that the term was unlikely to gain widespread traction in the industry because it is a name typically used to refer to more advanced systems.