tech
White House internal fight stalls US AI regulation after Mythos
A three-way internal fight between the Commerce Department, intelligence agencies, and pro-industry factions has paralysed US federal AI regulation. Trump scrapped an executive order at the last minute, CAISI testing announcements were pulled from NIST’s website, and no framework exists weeks after Mythos demonstrated offensive cybersecurity capabilities.
TL;DR
- Internal factions within the Trump administration are engaged in a "knife fight" over AI regulation, leading to paralysis in federal AI policy.
- An executive order aimed at formalizing pre-release safety evaluations for AI models was abruptly canceled by Trump, who expressed concerns about slowing American AI leadership.
- Announcements regarding pre-deployment testing agreements between NIST's CAISI and major AI companies were removed from NIST's website without explanation.
- National security officials want intelligence agencies to evaluate frontier AI models, especially those with offensive cybersecurity capabilities like Anthropic's Mythos, while the Commerce Department prefers a civilian testing model.
- The absence of a coherent US AI framework contrasts with the European Union's AI Act and creates regulatory uncertainty for companies, leading states to draft their own legislation.
- Trump's earlier repeal of Biden's AI executive order removed the only existing federal framework, and no replacement has materialized.
- The current policy vacuum leaves the US government unable to respond coherently to significant AI capability demonstrations.