The White House is setting its own rules for artificial intelligence in real time

It was almost A week after the Trump administration sent Export Control Directive to Anthropic, forcing one of the world’s leading AI labs to pull its most advanced models offline. after days of negotiations Between Anthropic and the White House, the two are still at odds over how to bring back the Claude Mythos and the Legend 5. Why? Well, it depends who you ask.

Throughout this entire debacle, Anthropic does not believe it violated any specific procedures or rules put in place by the Trump administration, according to a person close to the company. But the White House asserts that Anthropic acted recklessly, demonstrating that it cannot be trusted to deploy groundbreaking technology safely.

This saga proved to me that we are now officially in the era of the Wild West of American AI regulation. Although there are few laws governing borderline AI development, that doesn’t mean companies won’t end up getting into trouble with the Trump White House when they cross unspoken lines.

“The problem here is that the White House has been in this extreme anti-regulation position, and now they are facing real AI capabilities that people have been anticipating for many years,” says a former White House technology official, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid jeopardizing his professional relationships. “There should have been preparations and policies to systematically deal with this, managing the benefits and risks, but instead, it is this hasty approach that is putting the AI ​​industry in a real bind.”

The Trump administration has repeatedly blocked efforts to impose guardrails on the AI ​​industry, often arguing that the rules could hamper American innovation and lead to competitors like China falling behind. Since his return to the White House, President Trump has signed executive orders to do so reverse An effort under Biden to create a national framework for artificial intelligence and create a federal task force to challenge state laws It can be considered stressful.

While WIRED and other publications have reported details of negotiations between Anthropic and the White House over the past week, the dispute remains murky. At no time has the US government explained what Anthropic did wrong – the best we have Share on X A summary of the overall situation from White House technology adviser David Sachs.

Ironically, the White House’s actions have likely hindered the kind of innovation it wants to protect. The Trump administration has required Anthropic to block all foreign nationals from access to Mythos and Fable 5, blocking several AI lab employees from accessing its latest models, which the company says has sped up Even research and development In recent months. All of Anthropic’s clients are also banned, including Apple, Meta, and many Fortune 500 companies.

The White House may have legitimate reasons to be concerned about humanitarian models. As my colleagues and I reported on Wednesday, US officials became alarmed when they learned earlier this month Anthropic Mythos partnered with SK Telecoma giant South Korean telecommunications company that they claim has ties with China. Separately, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Raised concerns US Treasury Secretary Scott Besent revealed that some of the guardrails in Claude’s Fable 5, a protected version of the Mythos, can be circumvented.

Even if these concerns were legitimate, that does not mean that the White House addressed them appropriately. In the first case, Anthropic says it coordinated with the US government on the launch of Mythos, suggesting there may have been an opportunity for officials to raise concerns about SK Telecom early on. Anthropic has also been working with the Korean company for years, and this arrangement appears to have never gotten into national security issues before. When the White House raised its concerns about SK Telecom to Anthropic, it immediately revoked access to the model, we reported.