New: As lawmakers clamor for action after the Nvidia revelations, we have inside details into the Trump administration's thinking on AI export controls. - There have been renewed pushes in recent weeks within the Commerce Department for rule-making on both the remote access loophole and controls around lithography tooling, an essential chokepoint in the AI chip manufacturing process, though current and former Commerce officials are skeptical the efforts will advance - In late October, the White House sent feedback to Congressional staff on two export control bills attached to the NDAA. (h/t @Dareasmunhoz, who had this first) - Interestingly, the feedback called for a provision attached to the Overwatch Act that would order Commerce to close the remote access loophole on chips covered by the bill, effectively forcing the department to take action on an issue it has dragged its feet on - Especially with skepticism growing on the Hill toward Nvidia, substantial export control policy could pass through Congress, even as the Commerce Department remains paralyzed Lots of new information here, w/ the great @QianerLiu

Scoop: a16z's flagship blockchain fund plans to drop "crypto" from its name and rebrand as a16z frontier. a16z crypto was one of the first and largest mainstream blockchain funds, raising a monster $4.5 billion vehicle in 2022, and more recently a $2.2 billion fund earlier this year. Andreessen Horowitz also became one of the most vocal—and deep-pocketed—defenders of crypto in Washington, D.C. Longtime general partner Ali Yahya is also leaving the fund. a16z crypto has already been investing in non-blockchain startups like Kalshi and the AI compute market startup Ornn, and this move to expand beyond crypto echoes recent strategies by other top blockchain firms including Paradigm and Haun Ventures. Still, general partner Chris Dixon has long been a public face for the Web3 movement, and the decision represents a symbolic shift for one of the most prominent crypto venture operations. Full story here:

Scoop: The small agency within the Commerce Department tasked with testing new AI models, CAISSI, is getting its long-awaited refresh. The Trump administration recently finalized a plan to have three senior CAISSI officials report directly to the White House to better streamline the agency, which has long been plagued by resource and access issues. However, there has been confusion between the White House and Commerce Department on the restructure, which a White House official told me demonstrates why CAISSI leadership needs to move. Lots of new details here, including the debate over how to manage CAISSI, its role in the White House's AI framework for testing AI models, and personnel changes

Scoop: Sriram Krishnan, former top AI adviser in the Trump administration, is raising an AI-focused venture fund targeting around $500 million. Krishnan left the admin in June and is the latest in a string of Trump tech officials to (re)join the venture world or top tech companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Krishnan, a former a16z general partner, will be joining a crowded field of late-stage AI investors, though his background in tech and D.C. is already drawing significant interest. You can read my full piece here:

My weekend piece about how AI companies are going to "get sued up the wazoo" over rogue AI incidents, as one lawyer told me, but that the legal system is not designed to deal with the novel questions about liability. I spoke with Congressional staffers, legal experts, an AI insurance startup, and the public interest law group that sued OpenAI in California over Hugging Face to understand what happens next. Featuring @iampaulgrewal, @joellthayer, @bahradx, @RuneKvist, @TylerLASST and @LASST_law, and more

We have a new acronym for you: SAFA. The Google, OpenAI and Anthropic AI safety body is starting to take shape, with a tentative name of the Standards Authority for Frontier AI and hopes to launch by the end of the year or early next. W/ @steph_palazzolo Lots of details here including: - Former White House AI adviser Sriram Krishnan was approached for CEO, and David Friedberg and Condoleezza Rice considered for chair - There's an active debate over whether the body should conduct testing itself, amid concerns about lack of resources for CAISI - After the effort for a FINRA-like body lost steam in the White House, SAFA would proceed independently at first, with optimism for a public-private partnership in the future - SAFA could work together with a previous industry consortium, the Frontier Model Forum - There's widespread industry skepticism about the project from outside the three AI labs You can read all about it here:

On a potential AI slowdown, Treasury Sec. Bessent said that the U.S. and China discussed a mechanism called the U.S.-China AI dialogue and have agreed to meet again. The U.S. proposed a notification mechanism between the two countries and “we want a shared vision of common goals and threats.” The notification system for incidents would be whether something rises up to the national security level from AI. “We think that just like any cross-border activity, moving from opaque to more transparency between the number one and number two AI powers in the world is very important.” U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer said that U.S. chip export controls were not on the agenda.

Scoop: Anthropic, Google and OpenAI have been holding regular discussions about creating an AI industry standards body, meeting as recently as this past week even as efforts in the White House stalled. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also discussed moving the idea forward without the government in a company town hall this past week

New: The Trump admin has been working on a slimmed-down replacement of the Biden-era AI diffusion export controls. The new rule will likely attempt to close the remote access loophole, which allows Chinese AI firms to train abroad. First co-byline with the great @QianerLiu:

Scoop: The Anthropic-White House blowup has created a messy situation for AI companies seeking to launch new models, including for Anthropic's chief rival: OpenAI. Lots of details in this new piece with @steph_palazzolo and @amir:

SCOOP: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was among the tech leaders who raised concerns to senior Trump administration officials this week about security risks in Anthropic’s most advanced models W/ @steph_palazzolo, @catherineperlo1, and @coryweinberg