By Courtney Rozen
June 2 (Reuters) – The Trump administration will ask leading AI developers to voluntarily submit their most capable models for government cybersecurity tests before releasing them to the public, according to an executive order released on Tuesday, as security fears mount in Washington over powerful new AI systems such as Anthropic’s Mythos.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that directs the departments of Treasury, Defense, Commerce and Homeland Security, plus other government officials and agencies, to secure agreements with AI developers to test their models. U.S. agencies would get up to 30 days to test the models before they are released to organizations outside the government, according to the order. It also directs the agencies to emphasize bolstering cyber defense across government.
The order signals Trump is shifting his strategy on AI and taking a more active role in monitoring the technology’s capabilities. Since returning to office, he has said the federal government should take a hands-off approach to the tech sector, and has tried to discourage states from adopting AI regulations that he opposes. The president’s decision to implement voluntary testing could hurt the industry’s profits if it slows the rollout of new models or prompts the companies to change how they perform to address security concerns.
Google, Anthropic and OpenAI met with the U.S. government about cybersecurity, a senior U.S. official said in May on a call with reporters about the executive order’s development.
The order also asks the U.S. Treasury secretary to form an AI “cybersecurity clearinghouse, in voluntary collaboration with the AI industry and operators of critical infrastructure, that coordinates and deconflicts scanning for software vulnerabilities, discovers and validates such vulnerabilities, and coordinates and prioritizes remediation and distribution of vulnerability patches.”
(Reporting by Courtney Rozen, Bhargav Acharya and Ismail Shakil; Editing by Daphne Psaledakis and Chizu Nomiyama)
