OpenAI to Allow US Government Early Access to Frontier Models

OpenAI will allow the U.S. government to assess the capabilities of its artificial intelligence models before the company releases them, the company’s head of countries, George Osborne, said Friday (June 5).

Speaking with CNBC at SXSW in London, Osborne said the company will comply with the executive order signed Tuesday (June 2) by President Donald Trump, which created a voluntary process for AI companies to provide access to their models, CNBC reported Friday.

“It’s quite right that democratic governments have a big role to play in how this technology is used and deployed,” Osborne said, according to the report.

Osborne added that OpenAI takes the responsibilities associated with powerful AI models “very seriously” and that the company “proactively suggested ways that governments can keep a track on safety and security issues, not just in the U.S., but more broadly.”

The White House executive order asked companies to voluntarily take part in benchmarking to examine an AI model’s “advanced cyber capabilities” and gauge whether it should be classified as a “covered frontier model”; seeks access to those models for up to 30 days, allowing the government to choose “trusted partners that will have early access to covered frontier models to promote secure innovation and strengthen the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure”; and calls on the Department of Justice to prioritize the enforcement of laws against anyone using AI for cyberattacks, cybercrime or other types of crime.

The White House said the order should not be seen as creating “a mandatory governmental licensing, preclearance or permitting requirement for the development, publication, release or distribution of new AI models, including frontier models.”

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a Tuesday post on social platform X: “[The U.S. should] lead on AI by continuing to develop the very best models, making sure they’re safe, and getting cyber tools into the hands of trusted defenders. [The] new EO gets the balance right.”

Rival AI startup Anthropic suggested Thursday (June 4) that frontier AI developers should slow or pause their efforts and give societal structures and alignment research time to keep up with the advancing technology. Anthropic said its proposal was sparked by the growing share of AI development that is being delegated to AI systems, and the potential that an AI system could fully autonomously design and develop another AI system.

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