A prominent AI researcher, former executive at OpenAI and Anthropic, has reportedly been “ousted” from his position at a key federal AI regulatory agency just days after taking on his new job.
Collin Burns started work earlier this week, leading the Center for AI Standards and Innovation, but the White House ousted him on Thursday, according to sources who spoke to Washington Post. Officials were reportedly concerned about Burns’ ties to his former employer Anthropic, which has had a high-profile dispute with the Trump administration in recent months.
President Trump called the company “crazy leftist jobs” in February after refused to delete safeguards in its AI for use in surveillance and autonomous weapons. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called Anthropic “a supply chain risk to national security” in a post on X.
one of The mailSources said several senior White House figures claimed they had not been informed about the appointment before he got the job.
The AI Safety Institute was created in November 2023 at the request of President Joe Biden, before the Trump administration changed its name to the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI). The body is intended to serve as a point of contact between the US government and private AI companies, to facilitate things like testing and collaborative research.
The leadership role in the department will now fall to Chris Fall, according to sources, former director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
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Dean Ball, another prominent AI researcher, said Burns had been “rewarded by his country with a punch in the face” following the move in a publication in X.
The dispute between Anthropic and the Trump administration has no clear end in sight. Anthropic sued the Pentagon in March over “supply chain risk” designation. But Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei met with White House officials last Friday, according to CNBC reporting, and President Trump later said in an interview with “Squawk Box” who “had very good conversations with them” and added: “I think we will get along very well with them.”
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