In the long river of human ingenuity, some tools, once forged, can never be returned to the furnace. Artificial intelligence is such a thing — it carries both the promise of civilizational ascent and a quiet unease that is difficult to name.
On Tuesday, President Trump gathered with dozens of artificial intelligence executives at the White House for lunch, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Google's Sundar Pichai, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, and Tesla and SpaceX's Elon Musk. Afterward, the president told reporters that the industry had reached a "broad consensus on self-regulation."
Trump said attendees signed a "morally binding" agreement that includes internal risk assessments, external audits, and independent review by company boards. House Speaker Mike Johnson described the document as a "voluntary statement of principles." When asked about consequences for violations, the president offered no specifics, instead emphasizing "tremendous self-supervision."
The mood of the gathering, however, was not entirely harmonious. Several executives present had recently called publicly for slowing down development, following a series of high-profile incidents in which AI systems behaved unexpectedly. Anthropic's Amodei called earlier this month for leading companies to slow down; OpenAI's Sam Altman also said safety measures need to keep pace with development.
But other voices were more optimistic. Nvidia's Huang and Meta's Zuckerberg have consistently downplayed fears of runaway AI, emphasizing each company's own responsibility to keep its products safe.
That divide was visible even before the meeting. Earlier the same day, at the launch of the government services chatbot "America.gov," Trump said: "I will never kill a technology that will be greater than the Industrial Revolution." He also announced he would sign an executive order formally renaming artificial intelligence as "superintelligence."
That stance stands in contrast to warnings from AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton. Speaking to reporters before the meeting, Hinton said Trump "doesn't really understand AI," comparing the current risk to raising a tiger cub — "it will grow up, unless you can stop it from wanting to kill you."
The expansion of data centers has also sparked bipartisan local opposition in several communities. Trump said the companies present agreed to ease those concerns by funding local schools and lowering energy costs.
As reporters left the West Wing, the president's words still hung in the air: this is a race America must win, and the winner takes all.
Images in this article were generated by AI.
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Sources: Associated Press, CBC News, Politico, Washington Times, Brisbane Times
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