President Trump said on Tuesday that after hosting a luncheon at the White House with several technology industry executives, he has signed a document with technology leaders that carries "moral force" regarding artificial intelligence (AI). Amid growing discussions about AI safety risks, the Trump administration still favors addressing related issues through industry self-regulation rather than pausing technology development, and is considering forming a 10-person committee to oversee the AI industry.
U.S. Speaker of the House Johnson described the document as a "statement of principles" voluntarily followed by the industry, and said the White House will provide guidance for the AI industry's development. This arrangement is basically consistent with the Trump administration's previous AI policy direction. In June, the White House's executive order promoted advanced AI innovation while proposing a voluntary cooperation framework for frontier models, and explicitly stated that the framework should not be interpreted as establishing a mandatory government licensing, pre-review, or approval system.
Trump emphasizes industry "self-regulation," plans to form a 10-person committee
Trump, accompanied by technology company executives, told reporters that he has seen the AI industry demonstrate "very strong self-regulation." The government also has existing regulatory and enforcement mechanisms such as the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), but the industry's own constraints are equally important. Trump said the U.S. government will not stop AI development. At the same time, he disclosed that the government is considering forming a 10-person committee to oversee the AI industry, and plans to appoint a new "AI director" within the next three to four days.
Trump also expressed support for large-scale data center projects with investments often reaching billions of dollars. He believes these projects are positive for the United States, and technology companies also need to ensure that the communities hosting the data centers benefit from the investment. The White House's previously announced AI policy likewise emphasizes accelerating technology development and application. The national security presidential memorandum issued in June proposed that the United States will accelerate the adoption of AI in the national security field, while requiring relevant systems to be reliable, robust, and controllable, and establishing corresponding testing, validation, and risk management mechanisms.
AI safety concerns intensify as Anthropic calls for balancing competition and safety
However, even as Trump emphasizes self-regulation, there are still clear concerns within the AI industry about the safety risks of rapid technological development. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei again addressed AI risks when leaving the White House and said relevant regulatory rules are still under discussion. Amodei said all parties need to work together to ensure the United States can maintain its advantage in AI competition while also ensuring that this process advances safely. Recently, with an increase in cases of cyberattacks involving or coordinated by AI agents, as well as warnings from some researchers about the potential risks of more advanced AI systems, the debate in Washington and Silicon Valley over the pace of AI development has further intensified.
Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman have both called for slowing down some AI development processes, while Trump has previously been critical of some AI safety concerns. The Trump administration's current official policy seeks to strike a balance between accelerating innovation and ensuring safety. The White House's June executive order requires the establishment of an evaluation mechanism for the cyber capabilities of advanced AI models and allows developers to voluntarily provide models to the federal government for safety assessments before the official release of frontier models, while making clear that this will not create a mandatory model release licensing system.
OpenAI delays GPT-6.1 Astra release, putting AI model safety back in focus
AI safety issues have recently drawn further attention. OpenAI this week delayed the release of its latest GPT-6.1 Astra model due to safety issues. Just last week, the company also said it was conducting a "broad" review of model behavior. The report noted that after the widely watched Hugging Face attack incident this summer, OpenAI has disclosed multiple incidents of unauthorized model behavior, further intensifying external concerns about the possibility that autonomous AI systems could behave uncontrollably. These incidents also leave the industry facing an increasingly prominent policy dilemma, namely whether relying solely on companies' own safety mechanisms is sufficient to control potential risks as AI agents gradually gain the ability to call software, access data, and even autonomously perform tasks.
AMD CEO Lisa Su expressed a positive view of Tuesday's White House meeting. She said there was both optimism about AI development and a strong sense of responsibility in the room. She believes that technology companies' responsibilities include both demonstrating the potential of technology and ensuring its safety.
Huang, Musk, Zuckerberg and other tech giants gather at the White House
Tuesday's White House luncheon brought together many heavyweights from the U.S. technology industry. According to the published seating arrangement, Trump was seated next to NVIDIA (NVDA.US) CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla (TSLA.US) and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, followed by Meta Platforms, Inc. (META.US) CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet (GOOGL.US) CEO Sundar Pichai. Across from Trump was U.S. Vice President Vance, flanked by Amazon.com (AMZN.US) founder Jeff Bezos and House Speaker Johnson. Other attendees included Microsoft (MSFT.US) CEO Satya Nadella, Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown, OpenAI President Greg Brockman, and senior government officials including U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp said before the event began that the technology industry must take responsibility for risks it has already recognized and stressed that technology companies should not have a separate set of rules from ordinary Americans.
AI development and regulation enter a critical phase as U.S. government launches AI government services chatbot
This technology industry luncheon was also held alongside an all-day event hosted by Trump and Vice President Vance. During the event, the U.S. government unveiled a new AI chatbot for government websites, showing that the government itself is also accelerating the adoption of AI technology. The White House has launched multiple AI policies this year. On the one hand, it emphasizes reducing regulatory obstacles that may hinder innovation; on the other hand, it has also proposed new security requirements for frontier model cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, and national security applications. The executive order issued in June requires the government to strengthen AI-driven cyber defenses while prioritizing efforts to crack down on the illegal use of AI to intrude into or damage computer systems.
Based on the information released from Tuesday's meeting, the Trump administration has not changed its overall direction of promoting rapid technological development because of recent AI safety controversies. The future policy framework is more likely to center on corporate self-regulation, government safety oversight, and existing law enforcement, while how the newly established AI oversight committee and the soon-to-be-appointed "AI director" will participate remains to be further clarified. At the same time, as frontier AI labs such as OpenAI begin to adjust model release plans due to safety issues, divisions within the AI industry over "pace of development" and "safety boundaries" are becoming more prominent.