White House keeps AI safety-testing framework details private

Staff from six AI companies reviewed testing plan at White House meeting

The Trump administration finalized a framework this week for how it will test new artificial intelligence models for safety and cybersecurity risks, but is keeping details of the plan private, according to a report published Friday by The Guardian. After months of talks with tech industry leaders, the White House has not indicated it will release the policy publicly.

On Tuesday, staff from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, Nvidia and Microsoft attended a private meeting with White House officials to review the AI framework. Multiple outlets have reported that although the volunteer vetting process for new models has been settled, the White House does not plan to release its policy publicly and will share the testing criteria with only a select group of tech companies, the Guardian reported.

What level of scrutiny models will face and what safety benchmarks they must meet remains unclear, leaving businesses, foreign governments and the public in the dark, the paper reported. The White House, OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment.

Discussions over creating an AI cybersecurity framework began earlier this year after Anthropic withheld its Mythos model from public release in April over concerns that it could be used to hack into IT and financial systems. The model’s capabilities sparked a small geopolitical crisis over cybersecurity and spurred the Trump administration to reconsider its hands-off approach to AI regulation in favor of slightly more oversight.

In June, the White House issued an executive order calling on AI companies to voluntarily submit new models for government review up to 30 days before release. The order was a watered-down version of initial proposals to make parts of the vetting process mandatory, and tech figures including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly lobbied President Trump against a mandate. The order also set an August deadline for determining the framework.

The murky nature of the framework increases uncertainty for businesses reliant on AI models and for foreign governments increasingly worried that frontier AI models can pose unexpected security risks, the Guardian reported. Outside researchers and cybersecurity experts have little visibility into how the government is assessing new models, with only companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic privy to the process.

It is also unclear which companies’ models will be subject to government review, since the executive order does not define what qualifies as the advanced AI it targets. Open source models, which are free to download and use, will be excluded from the framework, according to Axios.

The framework comes amid persistent security concerns surrounding new AI models. Over the past month OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta disclosed that their new models hacked into outside organizations during what were intended to be isolated security tests. OpenAI and Anthropic also agreed to delay the release of new AI products over cybersecurity concerns and fears that their models could be used to hack into financial systems or otherwise create harm.

Earlier this year, the administration ordered the Center for AI Standards and Innovation to stop issuing public reports on AI model assessments while it worked out a framework. It is unclear whether those reports will resume now that the framework is finalized.