So much for voluntary review.
You may not be able to use the new ChatGPT 5.6 once it’s out. According to a report InformationOpenAI plans to slow down the release of its new AI models, and the first users will only be parties that are approved by the federal government. The publication’s sources said that, according to a staff memo from CEO Sam Altman, federal leaders will “approve customer-by-customer access during this preview period,” with the hope being a more general release of the 5.6 model “a few weeks later.”
Altman reportedly told staff in the memo, “We have made clear to the U.S. government that this is not our preferred long-term model, and we will work with them and others in the industry to achieve a more sustainable approach to future releases.”
It appears that multiple agencies are involved in directing a change in course on behalf of OpenAI. Information Conversations with the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy were cited, as well as the involvement of Commerce Department Secretary Howard Lutnick. Neither the White House nor representatives of the Office of the National Cyber Director responded to the publication’s requests for comment.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month requiring AI companies to participate in voluntary federal review of their more powerful models before they publicly release them. The government is expected to create a framework to standardize how it evaluates new models. However, shortly afterward, OpenAI rival Anthropic disabled all access to two of its recent models following a federal directive. That order did not provide specific information about its security concerns, only that the government wanted to block access to Anthropic’s equipment for any foreign national. Between that example and this additional step in OpenAI’s latest rollout, there’s still a lot of confusion around how the review process will work and how voluntary it is.
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