As I’ve written before, part of the reason AI news is such a mess right now is that what AI companies are and aren’t allowed to do is not clear. But a voluntary deal with Big AI is reportedly in the works that might smooth things out significantly (Your mileage may vary on whether or not that’s a good thing). According to the Financial Times, “as early as next week” the Trump Administration and several major U.S. frontier AI companies are expected to announce a set of standards for frontier AI models, particularly as regards cybersecurity capabilities. The report cites “people familiar with the talks”—anonymous leakers, in other words. One of FT’s anonymous sources said the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) which is under the Commerce Department, and the National Security Agency (NSA), which is under the Pentagon, will be central to these standards once formalized.
On June 12, the U.S. delivered an export control directive to Anthropic that essentially turned off its latest publicly released model, and kept it offline for the rest of June. OpenAI, evidently worried something similar might happen and muck up its plans too, has withheld the release of its latest models, seemingly as a precaution.
