A landmark US document laying out an agreement on policing the development of artificial intelligence – or “super intelligence” – has been mocked over a glaring error.
The White House Accord, signed this week by Donald Trump and executives from Meta, Google, Anthropic, SpaceX, OpenAI and Nvidia, proposed a “morally binding” pact of cooperation among the big tech firms developing artificial intelligence.
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But one not-so-small slip up was identified in the document – and seized on by the President’s critics – the name of the United States was misspelt.
“The Golden Age of ‘Super Intelligence’,” California Governor Gavin Newsom wrote, sharing the mistake on X.
A White House post on X containing the spelling mistake remained up on Thursday morning, AEST.
Mr Trump on Tuesday, local time, said the tech executives gathered at the White House for a high-powered summit to discuss regulating AI had committed to build adequate safeguards on the fast-moving technology.
“They’re going to police themselves,” Mr Trump said after the meeting that gathered the top leaders in artificial intelligence, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, OpenAI’s Greg Brockman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei.
Mr Trump said the tech bosses had signed a deal that would put on paper their commitment to self-regulate in a morally binding agreement that would not be legally enforceable.
But the final document left the door open “to codify these steps into laws or regulations” if it made sense over time.
“In order to build a positive future for the American people and the world, we believe every company is responsible for developing its own technology safely and in a way that builds trust with customers and the public,” the document states.
It sets out a plan for “robust internal controls to monitor the capabilities and alignment of its models during training and deployment around areas like cybersecurity, biosecurity, and chemical threats, and to ensure that its models do not hack or access technical systems in unintended ways”.
Speaking to reporters outside the Oval Office surrounded by the world’s most powerful tech titans, Mr Trump also confirmed he would officially rename the technology “super intelligence” instead of artificial intelligence, “because it’s not artificial.”
Hours later, he released an executive order in which he says the terms super intelligence and SI shall be used by the federal government whenever possible, because “’Super Intelligence’ more appropriately captures the promise, potential and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies”.
Extreme wealth in one room
Much has been made about the unprecedented concentration of wealth and power seen in one room, captured in images from the summit.
News outlets including the New York Post have compiled the net worth of the tech bosses who attended the meeting, which totals an eye-watering US$1.8 trillion ($2.6 trillion).
It has been labelled the richest table ever assembled.
Among them were the world’s richest man Elon Musk, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta head Mark Zuckerberg.
Mr Musk is worth more than US$929 billion, Mr Bezos more than US$370 billion and Mr Zuckerberg US$249 billion. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, also in the room, is worth just under US$200 billion.
The US President himself is now estimated to be worth US$7 billion ($10 billion) after major investments in cryptocurrency among other ventures.
‘Grading each other’s homework’
Meta boss Mr Zuckerberg said the accord aims to assure customers that AI technology “works in the way that we intend”.
Mr Zuckerberg called it a starting point for industry-wide standards.
Mr Musk, the world’s richest person, said the executives essentially agreed to “grading each other’s homework, which is a lot better than if people just grade their own homework for obvious reasons”.
Mr Amodei told reporters he agreed with Mr Trump’s line of “whoever wins AI, wins”, but added he thinks “the technology has very real risks”.
“How we address those risks is still under discussion, but we all need to work together to make sure we win and win safely,” he said.
The lunch meeting also included Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sundar Pichai of Google.
Of the 31 guests, two were women: Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, and AMD chief executive Lisa Su.
The gathering occurred as attitudes toward AI sour in Washington, with politicians increasingly under pressure from voters to curb or slow its development over fears it could displace workers and upend society.
It comes only a few weeks after Mr Trump railed against debate over the dangers posed by AI, calling claims it could pose an existential threat to humans a “hoax”.
“There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China. WHOEVER WINS AI, WINS!” he wrote on Truth Social last month.
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