The director of the United States Center for Standards and Innovation in Artificial Intelligence, Chris Fall, resigned just three months after being appointed to lead the federal AI testing institute at the Department of Commerce, a department spokesperson told Reuters.
Read more U.S. and Iran head towards total war after the ninth consecutive night of bombings
Arvind Raman, who leads the Department of Commerce office responsible for overseeing the AI testing institute, will temporarily assume Fall’s position, the spokesperson said. Raman is the former dean of engineering at Purdue University.
The Department of Commerce has not disclosed the reason for Fall’s departure. A spokesperson for President Donald Trump declined to comment. Reuters has not been able to immediately contact Fall for his comments.
Fall’s departure, the latest shift in Trump’s approach to AI
Fall’s departure marks the latest shift in Trump’s approach to AI. Upon returning to office in 2025, the president stated that the federal government should adopt a non-interventionist stance in the tech sector.
Since then, he has taken a more active role in overseeing this technology, although his public statements and policies seem to change week by week.
Read more Housing Secretary of State, David Lucas, dies at 58 years old
The institute collaborates with leading AI labs, such as Anthropic, Google’s DeepMind, and OpenAI, to assess the vulnerabilities of their models that have not yet been published.
The group is made up of scientists and engineers who focus on calculating the “demonstrable risks” posed by advanced AI models, according to the institute’s website.
Its goal is to limit opportunities for U.S. adversaries to use AI to develop chemical or biological weapons, or to corrupt the data used to train U.S. AI models. The institute also collaborates with Microsoft and Elon Musk’s xAI to test their models.
