My full hot take: The EO properly rejects any intent to create a mandatory government licensing, preclearance, or permitting regime for AI models, as the previously leaked draft also did. Its reduction of the federal preview period from up to 90 days to up to 30 days also provides increased certainty.

Yet significant ambiguities remain. The order sets no firm deadline for the government to determine whether a model is subject to the preview period. It also sets no firm deadline for government input on which trusted partners may receive a frontier model after the 30-day period ends. Those gaps could be used to pick winners and losers, or to give short-term national security concerns excessive weight at the expense of longer-term national security, economic growth, innovation, and other national interests.

At the same time, the current informal approach may already be vulnerable to arbitrary application and unpredictable results. So, the EO may improve on the status quo. But it deserves close and ongoing scrutiny, especially from Congress, which bears the ultimate responsibility for writing the rules that govern AI.