Trump signs 'morally-binding' AI agreement with tech leaders amid mounting alarm

The US President said tech chiefs signed up to a "morally binding" self-regulation agreement, as he continues to resist calls to implement stronger AI safeguards.

The closed-door meeting was attended by the leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google and Nvidia and comes against the backdrop of mounting concern about the rapid pace of AI development.

Tech executives, including Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI’s Sam Altman - have sounded the alarm in recent weeks about the dangers of AI and called for more government regulation.

Tuesday’s gathering, included various titans of the tech world, including Amodei, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI's Greg Brockman and Google's Sundar Pichai.

After the closed-door meeting, Mr Trump and the CEOs stood outside the White House and took questions from reporters for 30 minutes on AI safety.

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Zuckerberg, pulled forward from the crowd of billionaire executives by Trump to speak, said that the companies agreed to develop "robust internal controls" for their AI systems.

He added that auditors would check those procedures and report back to company boards.

Trump said he is considering setting up a 10-person board to police the safety of AI tools, without specifying who would make up that group.

Trump separately told reporters at the White House that the tech companies would work to make communities "happy" about the construction of data centres.

"Data centres are "going to do things for the community that will be really financially beneficial," he told reporters. "These big, powerful, very rich, very smart companies are going to be making massive contributions to communities."

Data centres, which provide the computing power needed to train and run AI models, have drawn opposition in communities nationwide over concerns about electricity demand, utility costs and other local impacts. The backlash poses a political challenge for Republicans heading into the US midterm elections on November 3.

Trump met with the executives the same day his aides announced a new AI tool that they said will make it easier for the public to use government services.

Silicon Valley executives attended the launch event on Tuesday morning, including Meta's Dina Powell McCormick and Sequoia Capital partner Shaun Maguire. Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia led the design of the new tool. Silicon Valley companies Google, SpaceX, Meta and 8VC were listed in the launch event's program as sponsors.

Trump at the launch event said he does not want to work with Chinese President Xi Jinping on governing AI technology, adding that doing so would make it harder for US companies to build better AI products than their Chinese counterparts.

Trump also said that he discussed AI with Xi when he visited the US last week, adding that the US already works with Xi's government "in so many ways."

Mr Trump has repeatedly downplayed the risks of the technology, instead stressing the importance of maintaining a competitive edge with China.

Earlier this month Donald Trump announced plans to rename AI to Super-intelligence, and insisted the only protection needed against the tech was a "smart president".

Washington and Beijing are competing for leadership in artificial intelligence, which both governments view as vital to their economic and military strength.

Trump and technology executives have argued that excessive regulation would slow US AI development and undermine American companies' ability to compete with Chinese rivals, a claim that safety advocates often refute.