The Commerce Department's 'Casey' initiative is evaluating unreleased models from major labs like OpenAI and Google. This silent approval process could slow public releases, give government exclusive access, and create hurdles for new entrants, effectively forming a regulatory moat that benefits established players.

The two-week review and subsequent relaunch of Anthropic's Fable 5 model demonstrates that the US government's approach to AI safety is not a clear, fixed set of rules. Instead, it's a subjective, case-by-case negotiation process, creating an opaque and potentially unstable framework that introduces significant uncertainty for future frontier model releases.

The US government's new AI safety testing framework is secret, with details withheld even from uninvited AI companies. This approach prioritizes maximum flexibility for the government but creates 'minimum knowability' for the industry, hindering planning and fostering distrust.

The White House is delaying models like GPT 5.6 through an informal, non-transparent process, approving access customer-by-customer. This arbitrary system, described as an "ad hoc licensing regime," is considered more damaging than predictable red tape because it creates immense uncertainty for developers and businesses.

The proposed White House framework for reviewing advanced AI models applies to closed-source systems from companies like OpenAI but exempts open-weight models from Meta and others. This creates a potential regulatory loophole, as open-weight models can be harder to control and monitor once released into the wild.

Instead of establishing clear regulations, the White House is intervening directly in AI rollouts, limiting access to new models like OpenAI's on a case-by-case basis due to national security. This high-touch approach gives the government immense control but creates uncertainty and is viewed by some safety advocates as a 'worst of both worlds' scenario.

The government is imposing export controls and release requirements on AI labs without a clear legal framework. Unlike the crypto era's lawsuits, which provided detailed complaints, this "regulation by enforcement" operates without published rules, creating extreme uncertainty for AI companies.

The White House is expanding its safety framework to include open models not just for risk mitigation, but to avoid creating a two-tiered system. Officials fear that excluding open models would signal they are not 'approved,' disincentivizing enterprise adoption and harming US open-source labs. The framework is thus becoming a de facto certification.

Beyond its stated ideals, the White House's AI framework has a key political aim: to preempt individual states from creating a patchwork of AI laws. This reflects a desire to centralize control over AI regulation, aligning with the tech industry's preference for a single federal standard.