President Donald Trump abruptly delayed the signing of a landmark executive order on AI Thursday afternoon, telling reporters that he had pulled the order at the last minute because it could interfere with American competitiveness on AI.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019re leading China, we\u2019re leading everybody, and I don\u2019t want to do anything that\u2019s going to get in the way of that lead,\u201d Trump, answering reporters\u2019 questions in the Oval Office during an unrelated event, said about America\u2019s AI industry. \u201cI really thought [the order] could have been a blocker.\u201d<\/p>\n
The order, reportedly in development for weeks<\/a>, was expected to direct federal agencies to shore up key cybersecurity defenses and work with the world\u2019s leading AI companies on a voluntary basis to test advanced models before they are available to the public, according to two people familiar with the draft.<\/p>\n The order\u2019s planned debut would have come less than two months after AI company Anthropic\u2019s Mythos Preview model demonstrated the novel ability to autonomously discover thousands of severe and critical cyber vulnerabilities, including in leading operating systems and web browsers. <\/p>\n In a news conference on Wednesday,<\/a> Vice President JD Vance said that the administration was prioritizing \u201cprotecting people\u2019s data\u201d and \u201cpeople\u2019s privacy\u201d in the wake of Mythos\u2019 debut. A \u201cbad actor could use Mythos to target various cybersecurity vulnerabilities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, we\u2019re working in a collaborative way with the technology companies, and we\u2019re just trying to make sure that the American people are as safe as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Anthropic has not released Mythos publicly, providing access just to a select group<\/a> of technology companies and government agencies to bolster their cybersecurity defenses. <\/p>\n It\u2019s not clear if or when the order could come up again for potential signing. Major tech CEOs were invited on short notice, with a list of major names invited beginning to circulate on Wednesday afternoon, and several could not attend the scheduled signing, according to two sources familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n The executive order in question looks to formalize how the federal government oversees the most advanced AI models, according to the sources. The document is split into two main sections: one focused on cybersecurity and the other on testing and vetting frontier AI models.<\/p>\n The order would direct several groups \u2014 including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the White House\u2019s Office of the National Cyber Director, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy \u2014 to establish methods to determine which AI models should fall under the new voluntary testing regime. <\/p>\n The order would then charge administration officials with creating a new framework for the government to access and evaluate yet-to-be-released models in conjunction with leading AI companies. The testing arrangements would be voluntary, according to the sources. American tech companies and administration officials have often pointed to regulations with more stringent requirements<\/a>, like the European Union\u2019s AI Act, as a potential threat to American innovation. <\/p>\n The cybersecurity section lays out several new initiatives designed to strengthen national security and Defense Department systems against AI-fueled cyberattacks, according to the people familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n The order would also lay out a directive to promote the use of AI tools to strengthen critical infrastructure, including utility companies and rural hospitals.<\/p>\n The administration has already partnered with some of America\u2019s leading AI companies to test models for safety concerns before they are released. Those evaluations are run by the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), housed within the Commerce Department\u2019s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).<\/a><\/p>\n A recent announcement about expanded pre-deployment testing<\/a> between CAISI and Microsoft, Google and xAI was removed from NIST\u2019s website several days after it was posted<\/a>.<\/p>\n