Is ‘self-regulation’ enough for AI? Trump says yes as lawmakers demand rules
by Kerry Picket, Lindsey McPherson · The Washington TimesPresident Trump said he agreed with more than two dozen of the nation’s top AI leaders Tuesday to rely on “tremendous self-regulation” for the industry, turning aside calls for tough rules on the burgeoning technology.
Emerging from a closed-door luncheon at the White House, Mr. Trump said he and Speaker Mike Johnson had a “very productive, extremely friendly” meeting with tech titans such as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI President Greg Brockman and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
Mr. Trump said the U.S. has “a very big lead and we’re going to keep our lead” in the industry, adding that some say AI is “bigger than the Industrial Revolution.”
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“There’s a belief that there should be tremendous self-regulation,” the president told reporters. “We automatically have regulation with…the FBI and all of that.”
The White House and the AI developers signed a “Joint Commitment on Frontier SI Responsibilities” that Mr. Johnson described as “voluntary.” Reporters repeatedly pressed for penalties, but neither he nor the president identified one. Mr. Trump instead pointed to “tremendous self-policing.”
Mr. Johnson called it “a statement of principles… a statement of standards, commitments that are voluntary on behalf of the industry.”
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He summarized it as “robust internal controls and layers of internal and external review.”
The agreement includes mechanisms to detect technology issues, including multiple layers of auditing, starting with an internal risk review and extending to external auditors and evaluators.
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Each company’s board of directors would be expected to independently review the reports that come from the auditors.
Mr. Trump signed it, saying “the biggest people in the world signed that. And I signed it as president.” He said the executives viewed it as “a separate kind of a constitution.”
Mr. Trump said he will name a White House AI “czar” within the next few days.
The president and Mr. Johnson convened the gathering amid election-year warnings from industry insiders that some artificial intelligence models have gone rogue, hacking into systems that their human programmers had not authorized or envisioned. Some industry leaders have even warned that the technology in the wrong hands could become a threat to civilization.
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Many lawmakers, particularly Democrats, have called on the administration to set tough guidelines for AI or for Congress to approve laws governing its use.
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But Mr. Trump says he’s worried about losing a race with China for dominance of AI, which he formally branded “super intelligence” in an executive order on Tuesday.
“We’re leading by a lot, and we’re gonna keep it that way,” the president said.
Although many tech CEOs have urged caution about AI, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has warned against overregulation and defended advancing its development.
Other tech leaders at the meeting included Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Altimeter CEO Brad Gerstner, ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott, Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra and SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Palantir CEO Alex Karp.
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Administration officials included Vice President J.D. Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House counsel Will Scharf and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles.
Mr. Johnson, who pushed for the meeting, credited Mr. Trump as “the only one with the gravitas to be able to pull all these people together.”
Speaking on CNBC before the meeting, Mr. Johnson said he hoped the AI leaders and the administration would agree on oversight and safety guardrails, which he suggested could be voluntary.
“Congress can’t go in and just, you know, take a knee-jerk reaction to over-regulate this because the frontier labs are ahead of where members of Congress are,” he said.
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Mr. Johnson said AI company leaders who have briefed him before releasing new models admit there is “some danger” in the technology and welcome oversight.
Because they have offered different ideas on safeguards, he suggested getting them together to hash out a consensus. He said he believes they will voluntarily implement guardrails to reassure investors, consumers and the public.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, did not attend the lunch but met individually with Mr. Amodei on Monday evening. Mr. Thune called their meeting “productive” and said Anthropic wants to play a “constructive” role in helping Congress develop a legislative framework for AI regulation.
“They want to make sure that we get it right. We’re in a competition, obviously, on this with China. We want to stay ahead there,” he said. “But I also think he understands the importance of ensuring that we strike the right balance: encourage the innovation but make sure we’re doing it in a safe way.”
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Mr. Thune is working on a bipartisan bill with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota Democrat, and Commerce Committee leaders that would provide some guardrails for advanced AI models. He said the feedback from Mr. Amodei and Anthropic has been “largely positive.”
Separately, Mr. Trump on Tuesday unveiled America.gov, an AI-powered portal meant to let citizens find federal agencies and services in one place with a simple query. Users can ask how to book a national park campsite, sign up for Medicare or enroll a child in a Trump Account, a form of tax-advantaged savings.
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Lindsey McPherson
lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com
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Kerry Picket
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