Report from Bloomberg
In Brief – President Donald Trump has signed an executive order establishing a voluntary framework to address potential new cybersecurity risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence systems. The directive reflects the administration’s preference for encouraging cooperation between government and industry rather than imposing regulations. Under the order, AI developers may voluntarily provide the federal government with access to frontier AI models for up to 30 days before public release. The policy does not require AI model “safety” testing, licensing, or government approval. Instead, it creates mechanisms for information sharing between AI companies and federal agencies, including the Treasury Department, Pentagon, and National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA, working with other agencies and AI labs, will help establish standards for determining which AI models qualify for government review. In May, the President rejected a plan that included a 90-day review period.
Context – The order follows weeks of reportedly intense debate inside the administration following the announcement by Anthropic that their Mythos model had unprecedented capabilities to find and exploit cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The company privately shared the system with a range of industry and government organizations to help them identify and address cyber vulnerabilities. The AI policy of the second Trump Administration has been aggressively pro-investment and innovation, and anti-regulatory, especially rejecting “handwringing about safety” or governance of AI to address “ideological, risk-focused obsessions, such as climate or equity.” But there is a cadre of high-profile conservative activists, and Republicans in Congress, who harshly criticize AI, Big Tech and its leaders, and call for AI regulation. The administration is clearly torn over whether the best way to deal with “science fiction” style AI risks is still to wave them off, especially as polling shows that Republican and Democratic voters are equally concerned about AI and states are moving forward with regulatory proposals. The AI industry should definitely prepare for a major regulatory push under a unified Democratic federal government.