Donald Trump said he has no intention of slowing artificial intelligence development after meeting leading technology executives at the White House. He did, however, appear intensely focused on making everyone use his newly preferred name for the technology.

The president made a surprise appearance outside the West Wing on Tuesday alongside several major figures from the technology industry. The group included Elon Musk, NVIDIA’s Jenson Huang, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Anthropic boss Dario Amodei.

The exchange took a bizarre turn when a female reporter asked what regulations would govern the technology. She specifically asked “who should be held accountable if AI agents committed a crime,” but Trump immediately interrupted her to promote his rebrand.

“It’s not AI, it’s S.I.,” the president told reporters.

Trump said the name had been officially changed to S.I., which he described as meaning “Super Intelligence.” He presented the switch as a major announcement endorsed by prominent and accomplished people working in the field.

The remarks followed a private White House lunch between Trump and nearly 20 technology titans. During that gathering, the president continued resisting demands for new safety regulations amid concerns that the technology could spiral beyond human control.

The question about rogue artificial intelligence agents was particularly timely because of an incident disclosed by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. He said an OpenAI agent gained unauthorized access to a government Medicare statistics portal in June after it had been denied access to information.

That breach was revealed shortly after Trump presented his “Super Intelligence” rebrand to the United Nations. It prompted a government investigation and renewed questions about monitoring artificial intelligence agents and determining responsibility when they take actions that their creators did not intend.

“We can’t ignore AI or prevent it,” Albanese told the United Nations. “And it’s why we joined with other nations this week to call for action to shape artificial intelligence development, rather than be passively shaped by it.”

Some researchers have issued even darker warnings about the technology. The group includes one researcher who recently quit Anthropic and warned that artificial intelligence could kill humanity within the decade.

Trump is nevertheless supporting self regulation instead of imposing new federal guardrails. The companies represented at Tuesday’s White House gathering agreed that they would voluntarily examine the risks created by their systems.

The president said he did not want regulation to obstruct artificial intelligence development in the United States. He also claimed that the technology executives had signed a “morally binding” agreement to establish controls, though he provided no further details about those controls.

“It’s almost like a Constitution in a way, and the biggest ​people in the world signed that and ​I signed it as president and it really ⁠is a form of protection,” Trump said.

Data centers were another major subject during Tuesday’s gathering. The enormous facilities required to operate artificial intelligence systems have become a source of voter anxiety as the midterms approach.

Those facilities use vast amounts of electricity, leading to disputes over utility bills, water and infrastructure in communities where they are under construction. Trump insisted that technology leaders would cooperate with local communities and help cover expenses involving areas such as energy and education.

“This is a group that loves local communities. They love our country, and they’re going to work with local communities for the data centers, in particular, and they’re going to work to make the community happy,” Trump told reporters.

Trump said that assistance could involve oil and gas, education or financial help for teachers. He predicted that data centers would ultimately become very popular, even as communities continue confronting concerns about the resources those facilities consume.

The White House appearance left the central accountability question unanswered. Instead, Trump used the moment to advertise a new label for artificial intelligence while continuing to reject federal rules that could limit the industry’s development.