Trump warns Congress wants to regulate AI industry out of business amid security incidents

Trump says Congress wants to regulate AI industry 'out of business'

WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. Congress wants to regulate the AI industry "out of business," according to a Punchbowl News interview published on Friday. Trump's remarks underscore a widening debate in Washington over how aggressively to police a fast-moving AI industry that has largely operated without new federal rules. Lawmakers have released a range of proposals that have not ⁠yet moved forward, including a bill that would require developers of the most powerful AI models to submit them for independent security audits. The debate over AI regulation became more urgent in the last few weeks, after developers OpenAI and Anthropic said their AI systems escaped containment during security testing. The OpenAI agent triggered a hack that compromised the infrastructure of AI ⁠startup Hugging Face, a platform where developers store and work together on code for AI models. The incident signaled that AI's expanding capabilities are already fueling the security threat experts long feared and that ⁠even top developers can be caught off guard by flaws their models can exploit. The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology ⁠separately proposed guidelines on Friday for evaluating AI systems, and asked for public feedback. NIST's job is to write ⁠standards for science and technology. The guidelines are for organizations that want to "measure the impact of their AI systems," according to NIST. Reporting by Courtney Rozen Editing by Rod Nickel Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Artificial Intelligence * Data Privacy * Intellectual Property * Public Policy Courtney Rozen Thomson Reuters Courtney Rozen reports on the world's largest technology companies from Washington, D.C., focusing on the relationship between the tech industry and the U.S. government. She reported on DOGE and the federal workforce during the first year of U.S. President Donald Trump's second term. Prior to joining Reuters, she was a White House correspondent at Bloomberg Government. She graduated from American University with a master's degree in journalism. Contact: [email protected]

Trump warns Congress wants to regulate AI out of business

President Donald Trump said Congress wants to regulate the artificial intelligence industry "out of business," according to Reuters. The remarks, published Friday in a Punchbowl News interview, come as Washington's debate over how aggressively to oversee AI has grown more contentious. Separately on Friday, NIST, which sits within the Commerce Department, put forward a set of guidelines for assessing AI systems and invited the public to weigh in. According to NIST, the guidelines are intended to help organizations assess what effects their AI systems are having. Ike Harris, who leads the Washington, D.C.-based Frontier Security Institute, a nonprofit focused on AI and national security, described the proposal as "the first step in standardizing the way the federal government evaluates AI systems both for itself and for its contractors," according to Reuters. Lawmakers have introduced a range of measures that have stalled, among them a bill that would require developers of the most powerful AI models to undergo independent security audits. The debate intensified in recent weeks after OpenAI and Anthropic said their AI systems escaped containment during security testing. In one incident, an OpenAI agent carried out a hack that breached the systems of AI startup Hugging Face, a platform used by developers to host and work together on AI model code. The policy standoff in Washington has been building for months. President Trump signed an executive order on AI that establishes a voluntary framework under which developers could give the federal government access to their most powerful models for up to 30 days before public release. The order prohibits any interpretation of its provisions as requiring mandatory licensing or permitting for AI models. Many Democrats criticized it as insufficient. Anthropic has pushed in a different direction. The company published a framework calling on Congress to require mandatory independent safety testing for the most powerful AI models and to give the government legal authority to block or delay deployments that pose catastrophic risks. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argued that AI should be subject to binding safety rules, likening the technology to automobiles, aviation, and pharmaceuticals. The framework would apply to models trained using more than 10²⁵ floating-point operations and developed by companies earning more than $500 million in AI-related revenue or spending more than $1 billion on AI research and development. Anthropic also took a position in the federal-versus-state preemption debate, arguing that existing state-level AI rules should remain intact unless Congress enacts legislation that meets or exceeds the rigor of its proposed framework.

Trump Says Congress Wants to Regulate AI Industry 'Out of Business'

WASHINGTON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - ⁠U.S. ⁠President Donald Trump said ⁠the U.S. Congress wants to regulate the AI industry "out of business," according to a Punchbowl News interview published on Friday. Trump's remarks underscore a widening debate in Washington over how aggressively ⁠to ⁠police a fast-moving AI industry that has largely operated without new federal rules. Lawmakers have released a range of proposals that have not yet moved forward, including a bill that would require developers of the most powerful AI models ⁠to submit ⁠them for independent security ⁠audits. The debate over AI regulation became more urgent in the last few weeks, after ⁠developers OpenAI and Anthropic said their AI systems escaped containment during security testing. The OpenAI agent triggered a hack that compromised the infrastructure of AI startup Hugging Face, ⁠a platform where developers store and work together on code ⁠for AI models. The incident signaled that AI's expanding capabilities are already fueling the security threat experts long feared and that even top developers can be caught off guard by flaws their models can exploit. The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology separately proposed guidelines on Friday for evaluating AI systems, ⁠and asked for public feedback. NIST's job is to write standards for science and technology. The guidelines are for organizations that want to "measure the impact of their AI systems," according to NIST. (Reporting by Courtney RozenEditing by Rod Nickel)