Trump goes ‘woke’ with a sudden change of mind

May 6, 2026 — 11:58am

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Until Anthropic’s Mythos model triggered alarm bells, the Trump administration labelled efforts to put guardrails around artificial intelligence as “woke.” Now it is scrambling to erect some of its own.

Earlier this week, the White House said it had reached an agreement with Google, Microsoft and xAI that would enable the US Commerce Department’s Centre for AI Standards and Innovation to “conduct pre-deployment evaluations and targeted research” on AI models before they were released.

Those reviews, it said, would enable the government to assess the capabilities of frontier models and their national security implications. Donald Trump is considering issuing an executive order to formalise early government access to the models.

Anthropic and OpenAI voluntarily signed similar agreements with the Biden administration to allow the government to assess and counter safety, security and privacy risks and help develop standards for AI development.

Almost as soon as he regained office, however, Trump (whose major campaign donors included Silicon Valley billionaires) signed executive orders that effectively demolished the Biden administration’s cautious approach to AI in favour of a laissez-faire, “America First” race for AI supremacy.

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He directed the Federal Trade Commission to identify and remove any regulations that retarded the development or deployment of AI and directed federal agencies to take account of unfavourable state AI regulations when awarding funding.

Any mention of climate change or diversity, equity and inclusion in assessments of the risks of AI was to be excised, and federal agencies were told they couldn’t procure any models developed with “woke” inputs.

The White House’s AI “czar,” David Sacks, cited first amendment........

© Brisbane Times