Trump Says AI Companies Will Police Themselves Under “Morally Binding” Agreement

I’m currently in Amsterdam to speak at a pair of events — TechSummit this week and World Summit AI next week — and I’m learning that being a European correspondent for American networks is brutal night-shift work. I landed at 9am local time this morning, stayed awake by biking around in the sun, and somehow managed to make it to 9pm, when I was pulled into a CNN appearance to offer my thoughts on the AI meeting at the White House today. But about halfway through an appearance on CNN International, the presenter cut in to say that Trump had taken the stage. Here’s a clip of how far I got:

I then had to sit and listen live as he brushed aside the existential threats that the tech leadership standing with him had raised, boasting instead that the very smart and very rich people behind him were going to “self-police.” Speaker Mike Johnson said that some sort of document would be distributed that solved our AI problems once and for all. Trump said that while the document might not be legally binding, it was “morally binding,” which I guess is good enough for him.

Here, then, is my reaction to the presidential continuation of the anti-democratic nightmare that is the American rollout of AI at scale.

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