Trump AI Pact Contains Typo, Sparks Online Ridicule
A voluntary AI agreement signed by Donald Trump and top tech CEOs featured a misspelling of "United States," prompting widespread mockery on social media.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump and CEOs of major AI firms—including Sundar Pichai, Dario Amodei, Mark Zuckerberg, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang—signed a voluntary "Joint Commitment on Frontier Responsibilities." The agreement, which details four tiers of oversight and auditing, aims to boost confidence that AI systems operate as intended, but it contains no legal force. A glaring typo labeled Trump as "President of the Unites States," sparking ridicule across X. The deal also calls for independent auditors and board committees to monitor AI models.
In parallel, Trump signed an executive order replacing the terms "artificial intelligence" and "AI" with "super intelligence" (SI), a label he promoted after a Truth Social poll favored it. Critics, including Senator Bernie Sanders and AI experts, warn that rapid AI development poses safety risks, underscoring the controversy surrounding the administration's approach.
Why it matters
The agreement and terminology shift highlight the U.S. government's growing role in AI oversight amid safety concerns.
How this story developed
- Jul 28 AI leaders urge U.S. to back global framework for slowing automated AI progress
- Sep 23 Jacob Coxon resigned from Anthropic, prompting Amodei’s essay calling for a paced AI development approach.
- Sep 24 The Busan trade truce was extended to Jan. 10.
- Sep 24 Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and AI researcher Yoshua Bengio joined the UN briefing.
- Sep 24 State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs issued a memo ordering diplomats to use “Super Intelligence” and the acronym “SI” instead of “Artificial Intelligence.”
- Sep 25 Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Vice Premier He Lifeng agreed to explore a notification mechanism for AI incidents that could affect national security.
- Sep 25 Bill Gates said that without strong regulation, artificial intelligence could eventually cause up to a billion fatalities.
- Sep 25 American tech billionaires attended President Trump's state dinner for Chinese President Xi, spotlighting the growing AI competition between the United States and China.
- Sep 26 AI CEOs publicly called for a slower rollout of new models.
- Sep 26 Gates now urges the creation of mandatory safeguards and monitoring systems for AI technologies.
- Sep 26 The Global Dialogue on AI Governance highlighted the omission of election‑system AI from its agenda.
- Sep 28 Gates called for immediate international cooperation to create comprehensive AI guardrails and ethical standards.
- Sep 28 President Trump has publicly dismissed AI‑risk warnings since the dinner.
- Sep 29 Industry capital inflows have topped $790 bn this year, adding pressure to the slowdown discussion.
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