Three takeaways from Trump's 'Super Intelligence' summit
The president also signed an executive order requiring his government to refer to AI as Super Intelligence.
Three takeaways from Trump's 'Super Intelligence' summit
Trump met with top tech leaders at the White House on Tuesday to discuss AI
US President Donald Trump held a meeting on Tuesday with leading technology executives in what he described as "an extraordinary gathering" of minds "building America's Golden Age".
Among those invited were leaders from OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, Meta and Google, all major players in the US AI sector.
The meeting took place as some tech executives and experts have urged stricter AI oversight and a slowdown in the technology's development, warning about the possible dangers it could pose to humanity.
Here are three main takeaways from Trump's White House tech summit.
After the closed-door session, Trump spent about 30 minutes taking questions from the media alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson and senior tech leaders.
The president said the executives had signed a "morally binding" document that would act as a "form of protection" against AI's possible risks.
According to the agreement, which Trump shared on social media, the companies are accountable for making sure their own technology is safe.
The firms also agreed to put in place safeguards to keep models working as intended and to quickly identify and correct any problems, the document said.
They will also cooperate with "independent auditors" to determine whether their AI systems are functioning as intended and to make sure their platforms do not "hack or access technical systems in unintended ways."
The agreement 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."
Trump also said he would create a board to monitor the safety of AI tools. He did not say who would serve on it.
The president has repeatedly brushed aside concerns about AI's risks, calling them a "hoax".
He has said the only "guardrails" the industry needs are a "smart" president.
In recent weeks, OpenAI and Anthropic have both called for tighter industry oversight and a slowdown in the technology's development.
On Monday, OpenAI said it had cancelled the release of its newest flagship AI model.
The company's security measures have faced intense scrutiny after several high-profile incidents involving its technology, including its models accessing Australian government platforms without authorisation.
Trump also repeated his backing for the rapid expansion of data centres, the vital computing infrastructure that powers AI.
The spread of data centres has faced resistance across the country over concerns about electricity consumption and their possible impact on communities.
Data centre construction has also become a possible political challenge for Trump's Republican party ahead of the US midterm elections in November.
Addressing those concerns, Trump said tech companies would work to make people "happy" about data centre construction.
"These big, powerful, very rich, very smart companies are going to be making massive contributions to communities," Trump told reporters.
Trump 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 of Nvidia, which makes computer chips essential for AI, said after the meeting that data centres should be called "super intelligence factories".
He added that these facilities are "reindustrialising the United States", creating jobs across the economy.
Also on Tuesday, Trump signed an executive order directing US government departments and agencies to begin using the terms "SI" and "Super Intelligence" and to no longer acknowledge the use of the term artificial intelligence.
According to the order, SI will replace AI in "official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents within the executive branch."
"As these capabilities continue to improve, they increasingly represent not merely artificial intelligence, but a new era of Super Intelligence," the order said.
In an address to the United Nations General Assembly last week, Trump said the word "artificial" made the technology "sound fake".
Some tech leaders and others close to the president have already begun using the term.
Zuckerberg wrote on social media on Monday: "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 after Trump's UN speech, some experts said the term was unlikely to catch on widely in the industry because it is usually used to describe more advanced systems.
Trump spoke to the media alongside tech executives after the summit