Trump signs AI executive order to give government early look at new models

Washington — President Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order meant to enhance artificial security and innovation by, among other things, establishing a program for AI companies to voluntarily share powerful new models with the government before they are released to the public. He delayed signing a version of the AI order nearly two weeks ago because he was concerned it would get "in the way" of the United States leading China and other competitors in the AI space. The executive order the president ultimately signed on Tuesday emphasizes that the federal government doesn't want to stifle innovation: "The United States continues to lead the world in Artificial Intelligence (AI) because of the enormous talent and innovation of our AI industry, and because we refuse to stifle this innovation with overly burdensome regulation." The order aims to both use AI to sure up the nation's federal cybersecurity systems for the use of AI and using the technology; develop a classified benchmarking process to identify "frontier" models for AI, or systems that are at the forefront of the field; and work with companies willing to voluntarily give the federal government access to such frontier models for up to 30 days before release. The ability of frontier models to identify long-overlooked software vulnerabilities in crucial systems has raised concerns that they could be used for nefarious purposes. …