As the White House met Tuesday with AI companies to discuss a finished voluntary framework for testing frontier AI models’ cybersecurity risk, Senate Democrats claimed the Trump administration’s lack of clarity on AI governance has fueled an increase in American companies outsourcing their operations to cheaper Chinese AI alternatives.
“The American people and leading AI companies need clear rules, not constantly changing dictates from the White House,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand wrote in a letter ahead of the meeting.
The
voluntary framework stems from a June 2 executive order that lets the government review powerful new AI models for national security risks for up to 30 days before they launch. But details were scarce.
On Monday, the administration announced it had met its deadline to finish the framework, but didn’t disclose what was actually in the document, who has seen it, or when companies will begin using it.
Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic—all reportedly in attendance at Tuesday’s closed-door meeting—reviewed a draft and submitted edits in late July,
Politico reported.
“Without consistent policy governing American models,” wrote Gillibrand and four other Democratic senators—Chris Coons, Mark Kelly, Adam Schiff, and Mark Warner—“consumers and businesses would be incentivized to migrate to models from foreign vendors, including those based in the People’s Republic of China.”
That point seems to miss the full scope of what makes Chinese AI alternatives so enticing, said Sam Bresnick, a research fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.
“Cost and fine-tunability are the drivers of Chinese AI adoption,” he said. “You can download the weights, and your engineers can fine-tune the model for whatever specific application you want. For a lot of companies, that’s easier than paying top dollar for a closed, proprietary model they don’t need.”
—Catherina Gioino
