Trump signs executive order to review AI models before they’re released

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Trump signs executive order to review AI models before they’re released

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TL;DR

President Trump signed an executive order establishing a voluntary framework for AI companies to share frontier models with the government.
The framework aims to promote secure innovation and strengthen cybersecurity for critical infrastructure.
Companies have the discretion to share their models pre-release and may receive confidentiality protections.
The order directs federal agencies to develop a framework for assessing advanced AI model cyber capabilities.
This move reflects a shift towards AI oversight, potentially influenced by recent events and industry engagements.

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Sam Altman

theUSshould lead on AI by continuing to develop the very best models, making sure they're safe, and getting cyber tools into the hands of trusted defenders.

the new EO gets the balance right.

clem 🤗

It's quite rational to regulate frontier API models, especially to get more transparency for the government, without regulating open-source AI.

Here's why:

1. The most dangerous AI systems right now aren't open models. They're the large frontier LLM APIs distributed through coding tools and assistants, because:

- They're built in secret behind closed doors and stay total black boxes. Zero transparency on what they can or can't do, with "safeguards" that blur everyone's ability to even analyze them.

- They're built and controlled by a few profit-maximizing megacorps, concentrating unprecedented power in very few hands, with every incentive to downplay risks and overstate their safeguards.

- They're distributed to hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of people and trivially easy to run.

2. Open-weight models are orders of magnitude less risky:

- They're not as massively distributed or as easy to use, especially the big ones, as APIs and assistants.

- We (including governments) can quickly and accurately analyze what they're capable of, and for now everyone confirms they're not as good as the APIs at doing bad things.

- They're distributed to everyone, so defenders and law enforcement get as much access as attackers.

The cost-benefit analysis of regulation is completely different too. Regulating frontier APIs is relatively easy and low risk while regulating open source would be much more complex, less efficient, and orders of magnitude more costly.

Regulating frontier APIs would only potentially hurt a few megacorps, if it even hurts them, given all the marketing that it is already generating for them. They can afford armies of lawyers and absorb losing a few billion dollars, especially given they're on track to become some of the most valuable companies in history.

Regulating open source, by contrast, would hurt the very people regulation is supposed to protect: small businesses, startups, researchers, nonprofits, universities, independent developers, and the broader public, while risking killing competition, slowing AI progress, and reducing transparency even more!

clem 🤗

Tired: The US government regulating open-source AI models

Wired: The US government training and releasing open-source AI models

Yann LeCun reposted

Adam Thierer

We stand at a critical crossroads in the debate over AI governance in the United States, and it feels like we are inching closer to a very serious battle over whether or not open source models will even be allowed in an environment where a new de facto licensing regime has been taking shape.

Lacking formal congressional statutory frameworks or clear administration rules (like the diffusion rule revision), we appear to be left with a sporadic, arbitrary, non-transparent process for model review. The fiction of “voluntary” agreements hangs over this debate, and some large model developers are already showing an incredible willingness to bend over backwards to accommodate national security-related officials / orders that the rest of us are not privy to. It's a very opaque process. And those model developers are expected to play ball with those officials, or else their models get pulled from the market or held up for long periods. Or they will lose any government procurement contracts they have. There is nothing “voluntary” about it when that Sword of Damocles hangs in the room.

As this mess worsens, at some point the question of how to handle open source models will come into sharper focus because it will have to. I've even heard some rumors lately that something may be coming from the admin on this front to address this.

Needless to say, if this informal new AI model review regime expands and takes on more pre-vetting characteristics / requirements, it is hard to see how open source players could comply with such quasi-licensing of AI models. Specifically, if this ambiguous new regime is accompanied by a general presumption of ‘restrict-until-permitted,’ then that would spell doom for open source. That is a very dark path for our country.

Worse yet, of course, would be a move by national security officials to more directly restrict open source models and capabilities. If that happens, then we would be right back in the thick of a Clipper Chip-like battle along the lines of what we saw in the late 1990s. That is a much darker path for America.

Meanwhile, open source developers have no “golden shares” or other goodies to offer the government to make their problems go away.

Let’s be clear: If our government takes the dark path, it will become the single most important battle over computational freedom of modern times. It is time for people to make a stand in defense of open source before it is too late.

Yann LeCun reposted

Daniel Jeffries

Replying to @Dr_Gingerballs

This is such a splitting hairs issue.

Like what would you want?

All the data? Not possible. Massive IP violation.

Training harness? Okay great, you can't run it at scale.

It's useful to have open models you can inspect and fine tune. Period. Yeah they are not "fully open"

Elon Musk reposted

Sawyer Merritt

The Trump Administration today announced a series of actions to "cut red tape and accelerate American automated vehicle innovation."

Secretary Sean Duffy has directed NHTSA to implement the following AV policy changes:

1) Accelerate development of first-ever AV performance standards through a partnership with SAE Industry Technologies Consortia (ITC): This partnership will fund a three-year, $5 million “A2SCEND” consortium, bringing together experts to gather data and accelerate creation of the first-ever AV performance standards. This project will inform a single national standard for AV safety to eliminate the patchwork regulatory landscape that has stifled innovation for years.

2) Allow Zoox to commercially deploy its robotaxis through a temporary exemption: This temporary exemption will allow the commercial deployment of up to 2,500 vehicles annually for two years, subject to an enhanced, adaptable oversight structure that can evolve as Zoox’s technology advances.

3) Publish an interim final rule that allows vehicles manufactured prior to an exemption to be eligible for a commercial deployment exemption:

This rule will modernize the application process and improve access to exemptions for innovators, including AV developers, by granting the NHTSA Administrator the discretion to apply temporary exemptions to vehicles manufactured prior to the effective date of an exemption grant.

4) Establish a new Federal Docket for public feedback on NHTSA’s updated safe AV development and deployment guidance:

NHTSA is updating its technical guidance for AVs for the first time since 2017—focusing on key safety areas like emergency responder interactions, safety management systems, remote assistance, and post-crash behavior to help the industry scale up driverless deployments safely.

5) Streamline the application process for Part 555 exemptions by updating guidance and soliciting feedback from the public:

By updating the Part 555 exemption process—which allows automakers to temporarily sell a limited number of non-compliant vehicles, primarily to test new technologies—NHTSA is aiming to create a more flexible oversight structure for exemptions and summarize recent AV framework activities, including expanded exemption pathways, streamlined crash reporting, and ongoing efforts to modernize Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).

Yann LeCun reposted

MTS

SITUATION UPDATE: The White House has exempted open models from its new framework to test frontier AI capabilities before release, per Axios.

clem 🤗

https://t.co/AiHFGvyR8u