Trump Signs Voluntary AI Safety Accord at White House Summit

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday directing federal agencies to refer to artificial intelligence as super intelligence, a move that coincided with a White House luncheon where he gathered leaders from major tech firms to endorse a voluntary agreement on responsible development.

The order requires immediate changes in government terminology, though the practical impact on daily operations for federal workers remains unclear. Trump framed the rebranding during an afternoon press conference as a way to move past public skepticism about the technology. He told reporters that concerns over AI risks had been overstated and that the new label would help Americans see the tools in a different light.

The luncheon brought together executives including Elon Musk of SpaceX, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, and others from OpenAI and Palantir. Before the event, Trump hosted the group for a meal in the East Room. The centerpiece of the gathering was a two-page document titled the White House Accord on Super Intelligence, which calls on each company to develop its technology safely and build public trust. Signatories committed to self-policing without new government rules.

Trump described the accord as morally binding when pressed by reporters on whether it carried enforcement power. The document contains no penalties for violations and leaves oversight to the companies themselves. Several of the executives present, including Amodei, have previously warned that advanced AI models could pose extreme risks without stronger regulatory guardrails. Those warnings helped fuel recent public debate over the need for oversight, yet the administration has continued to reject calls for mandatory standards.

The president dismissed earlier expressions of alarm as a hoax during the event. He positioned the name change and the accord as sufficient steps to address any remaining doubts. Critics noted that the approach mirrors earlier industry-led efforts that produced limited results on issues such as data privacy and content moderation. The meeting occurred against a backdrop of growing calls from researchers and some lawmakers for binding legislation to manage the deployment of powerful models.

Trump repeatedly highlighted the potential for super intelligence to drive American innovation and economic growth. He urged the public to place confidence in the assembled executives. The event concluded without announcements of new funding, staffing, or regulatory structures to monitor compliance with the accord. Federal agencies will now update internal documents and communications to reflect the terminology shift, adding administrative steps to existing AI-related projects.

The gathering underscored the administration's preference for voluntary measures over statutory requirements at a time when leading AI developers continue to release increasingly capable systems.