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After a bruising tussle inside his administration, President Donald Trump has gone for a decidedly non-committal approach to AI safety and security that\u2019s unlikely to survive sustained contact with reality.<\/p>\n
He issued an executive order on 2 June asking artificial intelligence companies to share their most powerful new models voluntarily with the government for up to 30 days before they are released more widely. Officials had been debating this vigorously for months.<\/p>\n
The order won\u2019t be enough. It\u2019s being described widely as a reversal by a previously anti-regulation administration. But it shouldn\u2019t be mistaken for regulation or oversight, as some headlines say. It does not state the US government will check new models to ensure they are safe and don\u2019t pose unacceptable security risks before they are released further.<\/p>\n
Rather, it\u2019s primarily about giving US government agencies as trusted defenders early access so they can figure out their own responses \u2013 including, presumably, how they might use it themselves against adversaries. They\u2019d be silly not to. It will give the good guys \u2013 hopefully including Australia\u2019s own cyber defenders as Five Eyes partners and allies \u2013 time to prepare against threats.<\/p>\n
But don\u2019t mistake it for a vetting regime \u2013 even a voluntary one. Indeed the order merely sets expectations on the industry that they take the same attitude that Anthropic took with its Mythos model, holding it back because of its formidable cyber capabilities and sharing it quickly with the US government. That\u2019s fine if all future models remain roughly like Mythos, but they won\u2019t. The next frontier models may be good for making bioweapons, or for finding whole new categories of software vulnerabilities that make Mythos look like Windows XP.<\/p>\n
What happens when a model is actually too powerful and therefore too dangerous to release, and there are no safeguards or mitigations that can remedy that risk in any reasonable timeframe? The voluntary framework in Trump\u2019s order imposes no obligation on the developer whatever the danger.<\/p>\n
In fact there is no verb at all to describe what the government will do during the 30 days it has exclusive access to a new model. It doesn\u2019t mention \u2018review\u2019, \u2018assess\u2019 or \u2018oversee\u2019, much less \u2018vet\u2019. In fact, it specifically says it\u2019s not about \u2018mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance, or permitting requirement\u2019 of new models.<\/p>\n
There are also some practical shortcomings, notably the brevity of the 30-day window \u2013 slashed from 90 days after lobbying from Silicon Valley represented primarily by the venture capitalist David Sacks, who until March was Trump\u2019s AI czar but clearly still has enormous sway. If a model has serious bioterror risks, is the US intelligence community going to have time to analyse and assess within 30 days?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to remember that this is an executive order, which is a presidential directive to government departments and agencies, not a law or regulation. An executive order can\u2019t force a private company to do anything \u2013 at least not in a way that would stand up in court.<\/p>\n
In an apparent nod to this reality, influential Republican Senator Ted Cruz posted on X: \u2018Now, it\u2019s Congress\u2019s turn. We must address catastrophic risk without ceding ground to China or restricting Americans\u2019 free expression.\u2019<\/p>\n
After the 30 days, the AI company and the government are to work together to choose the selected companies and organisations with which the model will be further shared. This latter step is more helpful in that it manages the staged release and may smooth the process for US allies such as Australia to gain access to new models more quickly than the seven weeks it took with Mythos.<\/p>\n