Promising he is “very close” to naming a new AI Czar, Donald Trump was full of praise and hyperbole today for the “outstanding” and very well-heeled bosses of OpenAI, Meta, X, Anthropic, Amazon, Nvidia, Microsoft, Palantir and Google.
Amid a backlash against data centers, worries of massive job losses and doomsday warnings from the industry itself, Trump stood with top tech CEOs and also pitched a rebrand of sorts. “We’ve changed the name officially to SI,” Trump told reporters gathered just outside the West Wing, referring to the switch from “artificial intelligence” to “super intelligence.”
Within hours, Trump made it official.
Watch on Deadline
Set to take over from the departing Sriram Krishnan, and to run the recently announced AI Force, the new czar will have to remember to call AI by its new Trump given moniker of “Superintelligence” – a rebranding POTUS made official Tuesday with an Executive Order. “The terminology used by the Federal Government should reflect the transformative capabilities of these technologies and the limitless opportunities they create for the American people,” the order read. “Accordingly, the term “Super Intelligence” more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies.”
Speaking outside the Executive Mansion after a sit-down snack with Mark Zuckerberg, Alex Karp, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Jensen Huang, the “fantastic” Dario Amodei and others, the former Apprentice host said he could unveil his AI Czar choice in the “next three to four days.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wasn’t there at the White House confab because of a company event in San San Francisco, Apple’s new CEO was absent, and Bezos skipped the presser, but all the other techlords joined Trump today to plot a plan and apparently guardrails for AI growth for America, kinda. Admitting that some of the dangers of AI are not a “hoax,” as he had called it before, Trump pivoted to reveal the CEOs had all signed a self-regulating agreement on AI (or Superintelligence as the MAGAman insists on calling it.)
As yet more reports of AI models going rogue emerged and in the shadow of some of the very people at the White House today previously warning of horrific AI outcomes, Trump said “there’s going to be a tremendous self-policing aspect” to the yet unreleased accord. Attacking Democrats as being anti-growth, Trump typically gave no specifics and skirted any enforcement except to say without irony the “almost like a constitution” would be “morally binding” for the CEOs.
In the absence of more information from Trump, one of those CEOs took a stab at what they had inked.
“The basic idea is that we want to give the American people and our customers confidence that the technology works in the way that we intend, right?” said Meta’s Zuckerberg.
“So, we drafted a set of principles and commitments around building robust internal controls and detecting if there are any issues with the technology, coupled with multiple layers of of auditing and controls, starting with internal risk review, external auditors and evaluators, and agreeing that we’re going to have all of our boards of directors independently review the reports that come from the auditors,” the subject of Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming The Social Reckoning added. “I think that these are good steps forward. The idea isn’t that this is the only thing that we will ever do; it is that this is a start.”
Earlier this month, Amodei triggered a new round of consternation over AI when he wrote an essay calling for development to be slowed, warning of a “swarm” of AI agents taking over the internet in six to 12 months. He said that recent incidents had raised alarm over the ability of agents to act on their own.
But Trump has continued to dismiss calls for greater regulation, warning of a race with China to dominate the technology. He’s also expressed continued support for data centers even amid a backlash in local communities, with lawmakers in both parties lending support to calls for greater controls on development.
“The data centers are incredible,” Trump said. “And by the way I am very good at real estate. Some of those buildings are absolutely beautiful. They are big strong powerful buildings but they are beautiful.”
Back to that AI Czar, Trump offered no hint who that could be, but he has already taken rumored front runner Scott Bessent out of consideration. The Treasury Secretary doesn’t want the gig and “he’s doing such a great job at Treasury,” Trump says. On a post last week, Trump said he was looking at “High I.Q. individuals.”
Trump being Trump, he may have had little to say about any self-regulating plan, but POTUS made sure to post the seating plan for today’s East Room lunch. If you had any doubt who was the center of gravity among the richest men on the planet, Trump wanted everyone to know it was himself.
