Trump's AI safety czar quits — and standards are in chaos

chris fall, director of the center for ai standards and innovation (caisi), resigned just three months after his appointment, marking the second departure from the post this year. prior to leading caisi, fall served as director of the department of energy's office of science during the first trump administration. the resignation comes as the agency faces pressure to define standards for frontier models and coordinate cybersecurity vulnerability responses, highlighted by the recent gold eagle executive order. despite these mandates, caisi was notably absent from recent federal actions, including the commerce department's brief ban on anthropic models and the new gold eagle oversight program. the instability at the top of the agency challenges the u.s. government's capacity to regulate ai risks and enforce standards amidst the escalating capabilities of open chinese models like kimi.