How big tech got its way on Trump’s AI executive order | AI (artificial intelligence)
Just hours before Donald Trump was to sign a long-awaited executive order on Thursday requiring new AI models to be vetted for safety by the government before they are released, the president abruptly backtracked. Despite growing public backlash against the technology and experts warning that new models will pose critical security risks, Trump has vowed that the US government will not slow down the race for artificial intelligence.
In a meeting with reporters on Thursday, Trump cited both America’s dominance and rivalry with China as the rationale behind the turnaround.
“I didn’t like some aspects of it, so I postponed it,” Trump said about the executive order in the Oval Office. “We’re leading China, we’re leaving everyone else behind, and I don’t want to do anything that gets in the way of that leadership.”
Trump’s delay of the order was a victory for tech leaders who have long opposed AI regulation and spent millions lobbying against it. According to reports, the decision was also a direct result of their influence. multiple news sales pointsTech billionaires including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and former White House “AI Czar” David Sacks have been personally urging Trump to reverse course in private phone calls.
After a brief period in which the White House appeared concerned enough about potential security ramifications to consider restrictions on border AI, Trump’s decision marks a return to his earlier hands-off approach and signals a future of laissez-faire. The tech industry remains capable of sustaining the rapid advancement of AI regardless of the potential harms, and Silicon Valley’s leaders have successfully tested their power to quash any regulatory initiatives in their infancy.
Powerful cybersecurity AI forces White House to consider regulation
Discussions at the White House about the order began after Anthropic announced its latest model, Claude Mythos, last month, but said it would delay making it public due to security concerns, calling the model’s ability to find vulnerabilities in computer code a “reckoning” for the cybersecurity industry. The mythos has sparked a minor geopolitical crisis, with governments from the UK to India to China worried that the AI model could target financial systems and other critical infrastructure.
The security risks posed by Mythos were not a one-off either. The capabilities of one company’s AI model are historically matched by other firms in the coming months, and sometimes eventually become available in open-source models that may have fewer restrictions on how they can be deployed. Mythos may be unique in its potential harms, but for now. OpenAI announced its cybersecurity AI product shortly after the launch of Mythos.
White House reaction to Mythos involving J.D. Vance Summoning the heads of artificial intelligence companies The move to encourage collaboration signaled a potential shift from the administration’s long-held view that the United States should develop artificial intelligence as quickly as possible and with as few restrictions as possible to maintain global leadership in the technology. Just last year, Vance declared at an international summit that “the future of artificial intelligence will not be won by wrangling over security.”
While the extent of Mythos’ abilities is not publicly known, he appeared to have frightened the White House enough to think that some trouble might actually be necessary. But his hat stance was directly at odds with the interests of much of the AI industry, which has closely aligned itself with the administration and has collectively donated hundreds of millions to Republican political causes.
In contrast, the AI industry has benefited greatly from Trump’s anti-regulatory stance. The president has publicly embraced industry leaders, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, while appointing others like Musk and Sacks to prominent government positions. In December, the president signed an executive order aimed at blocking any government attempts to regulate artificial intelligence, citing the tech industry’s customary talk of bucking bureaucracy and fighting China as justification.
AI companies lobby to rescind order for voluntary review
Shortly after executive order talks began, companies including Microsoft and Google appeared to offer further review, reaching an agreement allowing the government’s AI standards agency to review early versions of their models on national security grounds — but significantly only on a nonbinding, voluntary basis. Industry officials at special meetings He also started lobbying activities To weaken Trump’s potential order, this would create another voluntary government review process for new models.
This week’s planned executive order would carry no legal weight to force AI companies to submit their models for review, and falls miles short of what AI security advocates have proposed. The minimal increase in inspection was still enough to cause a last-minute rush to eliminate the directive. Sacks, a billionaire technology investor and former adviser to the administration, told Trump this week that the order would benefit China in the artificial intelligence race. According to Politico. Musk and Zuckerberg, Washington Post reportedThe president warned that the order would harm the economy and the U.S. AI advantage. Musk posted on social media platform X denying the report, saying he only spoke to Trump after the president decided to rescind the order.
A draft of the proposed order highlights how watered down the rescinded order would be, with clear assurances that it would not “stifle this innovation with overly burdensome regulations.”
“Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the creation of a mandatory governmental licensing, prior authorization, or authorization requirement for the development, publication, release, or distribution of new artificial intelligence models, including frontier models,” the draft decision stated. Copy obtained by Politico.
Future AI regulation unlikely
It’s been less than a month since the first reports of the White House closure taking into consideration When examining AI models, the likelihood of the Trump administration establishing strict AI regulations once again appears extremely low. The threat of a global collapse in cybersecurity; It joins disinformation, mass surveillance, autonomous warfare, labor market disruption, child abuse material, nonconsensual sexualized images, suicides, mass shootings, environmental damage, and a host of other potential harms linked to AI that have failed to spur any coherent plan from the White House to rein in the technology.
The extent of tech leaders’ influence on the Trump administration has the potential to continue to grow as the midterm elections approach and Silicon Valley pours money into the campaigns. Super Pacs like Leading the Future, which is backed by OpenAI’s chief executive Greg Brockman and has raised more than $125 million, are poised to spend large sums promoting anti-regulatory candidates and policies. Musk, who claimed last year that he would stay away from political donations, has also returned it’s raining tens of millions To Republican, pro-technology causes.
As many of these tech leaders pivot their entire companies and investments towards AI, even the slightest hint of regulation looks like a threat to huge financial gains if SpaceX and OpenAI also put AI at the center of their trillion-dollar IPOs this year.
