Trump Signs Executive Order That Invites Vetting of Top AI Models for National Security Risks

That directive was characterized as a voluntary collaboration with participating U.S.-based tech companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, which are sometimes described as “frontier labs” because they are building the most advanced AI systems. Several companies had been planning to have executives present at the May 21 signing event. Trump ended up signing it without any ceremony.The White House said in a social media post Tuesday that the executive order “creates a process for frontier labs to voluntarily share cutting-edge cyber models in order to secure critical infrastructure and strengthen the government’s own cyber defenses. We are NOT conducting oversight of all new models, as that level of government overreach would have chilling effects on free speech and innovation.”Juan Londoño, a policy analyst at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said the order is imperfect but “a step in the right direction to prepare the nation for the release of advanced AI systems.”He applauded the White House’s characterization of the process as voluntary but said he was concerned about the vagueness of how the government, led by the director of the National Security Agency, will decide which AI models qualify for scrutiny, and how it will decide which “trusted partners” get early access to them.Londoño said in an interview that giving so much discretion to the NSA director was a “dangerous precedent” that could enable the government to “weaponize” the policy against companies it is clashing with, like Anthropic.Plans for a new AI cybersecurity directive followed Anthropic’s April announcement of its most advanced AI model, calledClaude Mythos, in the middle of the company’s legal fight with the Trump administration over a contract dispute with the Pentagon.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell soon after convened an urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs, warning them about the risks posed by Mythos’ apparent ability to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world’s software. Anthropic has limited access to Mythos to only a small group of trusted partners, such as big tech companies and banks, though it said Tuesday it has expanded that group by another 150 organizations.Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s new order but its chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, described the policy as an important step.“As AI capabilities continue to advance, we believe effective safety frameworks should continue to be developed through democratic institutions, informed by technical expertise and broad stakeholder input, to promote accountability and public trust,” said a statement from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer.Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also welcomed Trump’s policy but criticized the administration for having “belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year.”Trump repealed many of former President Joe Biden’s guardrails for AI just hours after returning to the White House last year.Learn More at the AI Risk Summit | Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

The White House said in a social media post Tuesday that the executive order “creates a process for frontier labs to voluntarily share cutting-edge cyber models in order to secure critical infrastructure and strengthen the government’s own cyber defenses. We are NOT conducting oversight of all new models, as that level of government overreach would have chilling effects on free speech and innovation.”Juan Londoño, a policy analyst at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said the order is imperfect but “a step in the right direction to prepare the nation for the release of advanced AI systems.”He applauded the White House’s characterization of the process as voluntary but said he was concerned about the vagueness of how the government, led by the director of the National Security Agency, will decide which AI models qualify for scrutiny, and how it will decide which “trusted partners” get early access to them.Londoño said in an interview that giving so much discretion to the NSA director was a “dangerous precedent” that could enable the government to “weaponize” the policy against companies it is clashing with, like Anthropic.Plans for a new AI cybersecurity directive followed Anthropic’s April announcement of its most advanced AI model, calledClaude Mythos, in the middle of the company’s legal fight with the Trump administration over a contract dispute with the Pentagon.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell soon after convened an urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs, warning them about the risks posed by Mythos’ apparent ability to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world’s software. Anthropic has limited access to Mythos to only a small group of trusted partners, such as big tech companies and banks, though it said Tuesday it has expanded that group by another 150 organizations.Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s new order but its chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, described the policy as an important step.“As AI capabilities continue to advance, we believe effective safety frameworks should continue to be developed through democratic institutions, informed by technical expertise and broad stakeholder input, to promote accountability and public trust,” said a statement from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer.Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also welcomed Trump’s policy but criticized the administration for having “belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year.”Trump repealed many of former President Joe Biden’s guardrails for AI just hours after returning to the White House last year.Learn More at the AI Risk Summit | Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

Juan Londoño, a policy analyst at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said the order is imperfect but “a step in the right direction to prepare the nation for the release of advanced AI systems.”He applauded the White House’s characterization of the process as voluntary but said he was concerned about the vagueness of how the government, led by the director of the National Security Agency, will decide which AI models qualify for scrutiny, and how it will decide which “trusted partners” get early access to them.Londoño said in an interview that giving so much discretion to the NSA director was a “dangerous precedent” that could enable the government to “weaponize” the policy against companies it is clashing with, like Anthropic.Plans for a new AI cybersecurity directive followed Anthropic’s April announcement of its most advanced AI model, calledClaude Mythos, in the middle of the company’s legal fight with the Trump administration over a contract dispute with the Pentagon.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell soon after convened an urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs, warning them about the risks posed by Mythos’ apparent ability to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world’s software. Anthropic has limited access to Mythos to only a small group of trusted partners, such as big tech companies and banks, though it said Tuesday it has expanded that group by another 150 organizations.Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s new order but its chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, described the policy as an important step.“As AI capabilities continue to advance, we believe effective safety frameworks should continue to be developed through democratic institutions, informed by technical expertise and broad stakeholder input, to promote accountability and public trust,” said a statement from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer.Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also welcomed Trump’s policy but criticized the administration for having “belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year.”Trump repealed many of former President Joe Biden’s guardrails for AI just hours after returning to the White House last year.Learn More at the AI Risk Summit | Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

He applauded the White House’s characterization of the process as voluntary but said he was concerned about the vagueness of how the government, led by the director of the National Security Agency, will decide which AI models qualify for scrutiny, and how it will decide which “trusted partners” get early access to them.Londoño said in an interview that giving so much discretion to the NSA director was a “dangerous precedent” that could enable the government to “weaponize” the policy against companies it is clashing with, like Anthropic.Plans for a new AI cybersecurity directive followed Anthropic’s April announcement of its most advanced AI model, calledClaude Mythos, in the middle of the company’s legal fight with the Trump administration over a contract dispute with the Pentagon.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell soon after convened an urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs, warning them about the risks posed by Mythos’ apparent ability to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world’s software. Anthropic has limited access to Mythos to only a small group of trusted partners, such as big tech companies and banks, though it said Tuesday it has expanded that group by another 150 organizations.Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s new order but its chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, described the policy as an important step.“As AI capabilities continue to advance, we believe effective safety frameworks should continue to be developed through democratic institutions, informed by technical expertise and broad stakeholder input, to promote accountability and public trust,” said a statement from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer.Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also welcomed Trump’s policy but criticized the administration for having “belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year.”Trump repealed many of former President Joe Biden’s guardrails for AI just hours after returning to the White House last year.Learn More at the AI Risk Summit | Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

Londoño said in an interview that giving so much discretion to the NSA director was a “dangerous precedent” that could enable the government to “weaponize” the policy against companies it is clashing with, like Anthropic.Plans for a new AI cybersecurity directive followed Anthropic’s April announcement of its most advanced AI model, calledClaude Mythos, in the middle of the company’s legal fight with the Trump administration over a contract dispute with the Pentagon.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell soon after convened an urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs, warning them about the risks posed by Mythos’ apparent ability to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world’s software. Anthropic has limited access to Mythos to only a small group of trusted partners, such as big tech companies and banks, though it said Tuesday it has expanded that group by another 150 organizations.Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s new order but its chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, described the policy as an important step.“As AI capabilities continue to advance, we believe effective safety frameworks should continue to be developed through democratic institutions, informed by technical expertise and broad stakeholder input, to promote accountability and public trust,” said a statement from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer.Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also welcomed Trump’s policy but criticized the administration for having “belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year.”Trump repealed many of former President Joe Biden’s guardrails for AI just hours after returning to the White House last year.Learn More at the AI Risk Summit | Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

Plans for a new AI cybersecurity directive followed Anthropic’s April announcement of its most advanced AI model, calledClaude Mythos, in the middle of the company’s legal fight with the Trump administration over a contract dispute with the Pentagon.Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell soon after convened an urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs, warning them about the risks posed by Mythos’ apparent ability to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world’s software. Anthropic has limited access to Mythos to only a small group of trusted partners, such as big tech companies and banks, though it said Tuesday it has expanded that group by another 150 organizations.Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s new order but its chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, described the policy as an important step.“As AI capabilities continue to advance, we believe effective safety frameworks should continue to be developed through democratic institutions, informed by technical expertise and broad stakeholder input, to promote accountability and public trust,” said a statement from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer.Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also welcomed Trump’s policy but criticized the administration for having “belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year.”Trump repealed many of former President Joe Biden’s guardrails for AI just hours after returning to the White House last year.Learn More at the AI Risk Summit | Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell soon after convened an urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs, warning them about the risks posed by Mythos’ apparent ability to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world’s software. Anthropic has limited access to Mythos to only a small group of trusted partners, such as big tech companies and banks, though it said Tuesday it has expanded that group by another 150 organizations.Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s new order but its chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, described the policy as an important step.“As AI capabilities continue to advance, we believe effective safety frameworks should continue to be developed through democratic institutions, informed by technical expertise and broad stakeholder input, to promote accountability and public trust,” said a statement from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer.Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also welcomed Trump’s policy but criticized the administration for having “belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year.”Trump repealed many of former President Joe Biden’s guardrails for AI just hours after returning to the White House last year.Learn More at the AI Risk Summit | Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s new order but its chief rival, ChatGPT maker OpenAI, described the policy as an important step.“As AI capabilities continue to advance, we believe effective safety frameworks should continue to be developed through democratic institutions, informed by technical expertise and broad stakeholder input, to promote accountability and public trust,” said a statement from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer.Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also welcomed Trump’s policy but criticized the administration for having “belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year.”Trump repealed many of former President Joe Biden’s guardrails for AI just hours after returning to the White House last year.Learn More at the AI Risk Summit | Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

“As AI capabilities continue to advance, we believe effective safety frameworks should continue to be developed through democratic institutions, informed by technical expertise and broad stakeholder input, to promote accountability and public trust,” said a statement from Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer.Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also welcomed Trump’s policy but criticized the administration for having “belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year.”Trump repealed many of former President Joe Biden’s guardrails for AI just hours after returning to the White House last year.Learn More at the AI Risk Summit | Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also welcomed Trump’s policy but criticized the administration for having “belatedly discovered the need to redo something it hastily dismantled in its first year.”Trump repealed many of former President Joe Biden’s guardrails for AI just hours after returning to the White House last year.Learn More at the AI Risk Summit | Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay

Source: SecurityWeek