Trump announces 'morally binding' agreement to regulate artificial intelligence with technology leaders

US President Donald Trump announced that technology company officials who met at the White House to discuss regulating the artificial intelligence sector had signed an agreement that he described as “morally binding,” requiring adequate safeguards for this rapidly developing technology, at a time when calls are mounting within Congress to impose tighter oversight on the sector.

Trump said after the meeting, which included the most prominent leaders of the artificial intelligence sector, that technology companies “will monitor themselves,” stressing his confidence in the sector’s ability to establish effective controls to deal with potential risks.

A voluntary agreement that may turn into legislation

Although the agreement was described as being based on moral obligations, the final document called the “White House Agreement” kept the door open to the possibility of converting these measures into laws or regulations in the future.

Trump also announced his intention to rename this technology in government documents to “super intelligence” instead of “artificial intelligence.”

A number of the world's most prominent technology leaders participated in the meeting, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos from Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg from Meta, Satya Nadella from Microsoft, Sundar Pichai from Google, and Jensen Huang from Nvidia, along with Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson, CEO of Anthropic Dario Amodei, and President of OpenAI Greg Brockman.

Of the 31 participants in the meeting, only two women attended: White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and AMD CEO Lisa Su.

Commitment to internal controls and oversight

Zuckerberg said that the goal of the agreement is to reassure users that artificial intelligence technologies “work the way we want,” noting that the companies agreed to implement strict internal controls and multiple levels of audit and review.

For his part, Musk explained that executives practically agreed to review each other's work, considering that this approach is more effective than each company relying on its own evaluations.

The meeting comes at a time when skeptical attitudes towards artificial intelligence are escalating in Washington, amid increasing pressure on lawmakers to limit the speed of development of this technology, due to fears of its impact on jobs and profound transformations in society.

The Republican leader in the House of Representatives said that sector actors should be an essential part of any discussion regarding protection guarantees, as they are the most knowledgeable about technology.

Artificial intelligence is becoming an electoral issue

A series of incidents and reports related to artificial intelligence over the past months have added increasing political importance to the file, making it one of the prominent topics as the US legislative elections scheduled for November approach.

A poll conducted by CNN in mid-September also showed that 82% of Americans are concerned about the speed of development of artificial intelligence.

The massive data centers on which artificial intelligence applications rely have become a point of contention between the two parties, due to concerns about electricity and water consumption and their impact on local resources.

Trump rejected the criticism directed at these centers, considering that societies that refuse to host them expose themselves to the risk of economic backwardness, while China benefits from the United States’ slowdown in this field.

Division within the sector regarding regulation

In contrast, technology leaders have different positions on the amount of oversight required for artificial intelligence. While Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, and Demis Hassabis call for a greater role for governments in setting controls, others, including Jensen Huang and Mark Zuckerberg, believe that the solution lies in developing more advanced security tools without slowing the pace of innovation.

Despite the escalation of controversy within Congress, there do not appear to be opportunities to approve new legislation before the next elections, at a time when the political and technical debate continues about the best ways to achieve a balance between innovation and protection.