At the Last Minute, Trump Pulls AI Executive Order After Calls With Tech CEOs
By Rick MoranEarlier this month, the New York Times reported that the "Trump administration is considering an executive order to establish a working group on AI featuring tech executives and government officials, including plans for a formal government review process for new AI models."
It was one of the most intense internal discussions at the White House during Trump's second term, dividing the administration between those who wanted the government to lay a light regulatory hand on the AI industry and those who thought more robust safety measures were needed.
In December, Trump issued an executive order to develop standards and protocols for AI to give Congress guidance in creating a legislative framework for the technology. "To win, United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation," the executive order said. Trump proposed that the growing patchwork of state laws and regulations be replaced with a single national strategy to regulate AI.
This week, the issue came to a head. An executive order was to be released on Thursday, and the president invited tech CEOs to the signing.
But last-minute lobbying by Elon Musk and crypto czar David Sacks, as well as phone calls from AI CEOs, convinced Trump to delay the signing.
The stakes are enormous. How fast and how far will AI be allowed to grow and improve? How much regulation is needed or desired to keep American AI companies competitive against China and other nations?
Trump's recent trip to China may have convinced him that the draft executive order his administration was considering was too strict and might impede the race to find and exploit AI for the benefit of the economy.
“I really thought that could have been a blocker,” Trump said, noting the benefits of AI in the American economy. “And I want to make sure that it’s not.”
At issue is the voluntary review the government was suggesting for all new AI models.
Over weeks of discussion, with extensive input from tech industry leaders, the White House had arrived at a draft executive order that officials described as balancing concerns about safety with the needs of the industry. The order would have created a voluntary system under which companies would provide the government with an early look at frontier AI systems — up to 90 days before public release — so agencies could test the models for dangerous capabilities, identify vulnerabilities, and prepare defenses before hackers or foreign adversaries could exploit them, according to a draft of the order viewed by The Washington Post.
The voluntary system was far less stringent than the mandatory testing that some of Trump’s allies had called for.
“Nothing in this section shall be construed to authorize the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement for the development, publication, release, or distribution of new models, including frontier models,” a draft of the order said.
The tech leaders were balking at the idea of the government reviewing new AI models through companies' "voluntary" compliance. They worried that "the proposed system could result in a de facto mandatory regime where companies would need to seek green lights from the government to release systems," the Post reported.
It sounds to me like the tech companies couldn't take "yes" for an answer. They talked themselves out of a sensible deal, and it's not clear at all exactly what they want.
Sacks appeared to have the president's ear on this issue.
Sacks also said that the order could slow companies from releasing incremental updates to AI models, a senior administration official said. White House officials involved in drafting the order pushed back, saying that the order said companies only had to share their models up to 90 days in advance and minor updates would not be delayed.
He also warned that the review system could be abused by a future administration, pointing to the more stringent AI regulations that former president Joe Biden had introduced in his term. White House officials argued that future administrations would not be bound by this order anyway.
The development of Anthropic's Mythos and its ability to autonomously hack into certain security systems convinced Trump that his original "hands off" approach to AI regulation wasn't going to work. Now the tech companies are pushing back against the administration's efforts to establish even a voluntary regimen to ensure minimum safety standards.
This is a pivotal moment in history, and everyone involved seems to realize that. That they also appear to want to get it right is encouraging.
I'm just glad that Joe Biden is not making the same decisions that Trump is mulling over.
 |
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐