WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� called off a signing ceremony Thursday for a new order on because he worried it could dull America鈥檚 edge on AI technology.
Trump said he was postponing the signing because he did not like what he saw in the order鈥檚 text. He announced the change hours before the event was scheduled to take place in the Oval Office.
鈥淲e鈥檙e leading China, we鈥檙e leading everybody, and I don鈥檛 want to do anything that鈥檚 going to get in the way of that lead,鈥� Trump told reporters at an unrelated Oval Office event.
The push for some kind of government action to vet the most powerful AI systems follows growing concern within the banking industry and other institutions about the to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the world鈥檚 software.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell convened an urgent meeting with Wall Street CEOs in April, warning them about the cybersecurity risks posed by Anthropic鈥檚 AI model, Claude Mythos.
The meeting, urgently assembled at the Treasury Department’s headquarters, was intended to ensure that banks were aware of the risks associated with the models, Bessent said at CNBC鈥檚 鈥淚nvest in America Forum鈥� in Washington in April. 鈥淭his new Anthropic model is very powerful,鈥� he said. 鈥淪ome banks are doing a better job in cybersecurity than others, and we want to have the ability to convene them and talk about what is best practices and where they should be heading.”
That led some allies of the Republican president to propose better methods for getting those AI tools in the hands of trusted cybersecurity experts.
But an approach that could be perceived as government screening of commercial AI models would have signaled a significant shift in Trump鈥檚 pledges coming into his second White House term to undo the AI safety regulations set by Democratic President Joe Biden.
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O’Brien reported from Providence, R.I. Associated Press writer Fatima Hussein contributed to this report.
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