US President Donald Trump has announced a voluntary agreement with leading tech companies that would give the AI industry primary responsibility for overseeing its own systems. The agreement came after a White House meeting with company executives including Mark Zuckerberg, Jensen Huang, Dario Amodei and Elon Musk.
The agreement requires companies to establish “robust internal controls“, work with independent external auditors and create committees on their boards to review the results of audits. This means that companies will monitor themselves to see if their models meet the agreed standards. The details were reported by the Associated Press and Reuters.
“I see a tremendous amount of self-regulation and they understand that they have to self-regulate“, Trump said after the meeting. The president described the agreement as morally binding, but it is not federal law and does not introduce a mandatory state regime for all developers.
No new federal regulatory law
The White House's approach so far has been focused on voluntary standards, not new specific restrictions on the AI industry. Trump again defended the accelerated development of the technology and the expansion of data centers, despite growing concerns about the safety of the models, electricity consumption and their impact on the labor market.
Reuters reported that Trump is also considering the creation of a 10-member council to oversee the safety of AI tools. No final composition, powers or deadline for its creation have been announced yet. It has not been confirmed whether the council will have regulatory functions.
The government introduces its own AI portal
On the same day, the White House unveiled America.gov - a single digital gateway to federal services. The platform uses artificial intelligence, which the administration calls "superintelligence", or SI. Through it, users can ask questions in understandable language and receive information from federal institutions.
Later this year, services such as passport renewal and Medicare enrollment are to be added. Tax services of the Internal Revenue Service and sensitive national security services of intelligence agencies are excluded from the platform. The White House says federal agencies will gradually have to integrate their public services into America.gov.
The administration is also officially imposing the term “superintelligence“ in government communications instead of “artificial intelligence“ and “AI“. According to “The Guardian“, this is part of an executive order announced by Trump along with a new approach to regulating technology.
The next decisions will show whether the voluntary contract will remain the only main mechanism for control or will be followed by a state council, new rules and additional structures such as the planned “AI Force“.
Sources: Reuters, Guardian