Conference Presentation, Fireside Chat, Interview
Michael Kratsios: Inside the White House's AI Strategy
- Michael Kratos serves as Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and is the President's top advisor on science and technology, having previously served as the Chief Technology Officer in Trump's first term and COO of Scale AI.
- Kratos identifies American leadership in emerging technologies as a critical national priority, arguing that the scale of problems addressed by the US government surpasses what can be achieved even at the largest private tech companies.
- The White House maintains a firm policy of supporting open-source and open-weight AI models, a stance explicitly detailed in Chapter 1 of the U.S. AI strategy released in July 2024 and reaffirmed following industry letters requesting no clampdowns on open weights.
- Kratos emphasizes that AI policy in the U.S. is "extraordinarily federated," requiring the White House to coordinate across multiple agencies (e.g., FAA for drones, Department of Defense for national security) rather than relying on a single technology ministry.
- The administration rejects setting firm regulatory "red lines" or compute thresholds, citing the EU AI Act as a cautionary example of regulations finalized before key technologies like LLMs existed and now proving obsolete.
- Kratos identifies two primary AI risks: immediate cyber risks associated with model capabilities (like the Mithos moment) and future biological risks, though he characterizes current bio-risk concerns as potentially overblown relative to the lack of recent incidents.
- To prevent incumbents from using regulation to create moats, the administration advocates for a single national standard for AI to preempt a patchwork of state-level regulations that would disproportionately burden startups compared to large tech firms.
- The current administration is prioritizing the reduction of regulatory barriers for "born-in-captivity" technologies (those requiring government approval to commercialize, such as commercial drones or supersonic flight) while preserving a "born free" status for emerging digital technologies.
- A new 150-page OSTP report, A New Golden Age for Science, proposes a shift from a government-monopolized research ecosystem (historically ~70% federal funding) to a model where private and philanthropic sectors lead R&D, with the government focusing on catalyzing infrastructure.
- The report outlines a vision for an AI-driven scientific revolution, including autonomous cloud labs, robotic experimentation loops, and fast grants with decisions made in under a month to accelerate discoveries in fields like material science and biotech.
- President Trump has signed an executive order prioritizing quantum information science, setting a goal for the Department of Energy to build a scientifically relevant quantum computer by 2028.
- Kratos notes that executive orders allow for policy reversals during administration transitions, whereas statutory laws passed by Congress are permanent; consequently, the White House has proposed legislative preemption to Congress to establish uniform national rules.
- Regarding intellectual property, the administration's stance is that model outputs infringing on specific rights (e.g., Disney's Mickey Mouse) must be prohibited, while the market should be allowed to mature revenue-sharing models for training data and creator IP without immediate heavy legislation.
- The OSTP team structure includes specialized units for specific portfolios (e.g., a three-person space team coordinating NASA and DoD), with policy disputes escalating from agency levels to the President only when consensus cannot be reached.
- Kratos encourages young founders to consider government service, asserting that while bureaucratic, the role offers unparalleled opportunities to impact the ecosystem and enable the creation of new companies that touch the lives of citizens.
- The administration actively engages with the "little tech" community, contrasting with the dominance of Big Tech in policy discussions, and continues antitrust actions initiated in the first Trump term against entities like Google and Apple.
- Kratos highlights the "born free" versus "born in captivity" framework as a guide for regulation, noting that technologies like the internet should be preserved without new barriers, while others require deliberate removal of regulatory hurdles to reach the market.