New Delhi, May 22 -- President Donald Trump abruptly called off the signing of a highly anticipated executive order on artificial intelligence on Thursday, hours after the White House had dispatched invitations to the chief executives of the country's leading technology companies to attend a formal ceremony. Some of those executives were already travelling to Washington when word came through that the event had been postponed.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he had scrapped the signing because he "didn't like" the draft of the order. "I really thought that could have been a blocker," he said, pointing to the role of AI in the broader American economy. "And I want to make sure that it's not."

According to three people famili...