Edmund Halverson
Edmund Halverson is the lead reporter for The A.I. Canonical, covering frontier laboratories, federal regulation, and the executive politics of artificial intelligence. He joined the publication at its founding.
Bylines · 20 filings
- NATIONAL
OpenAI Releases GPT-5.6 to the Public After 12-Day Government Review
The Commerce Department cleared the Sol, Terra and Luna models for general availability on Thursday, ending a preclearance process the company itself has called neither ideal nor sustainable.
July 9, 2026 - NATIONAL
OpenAI Proposes Giving Washington a 5% Stake Worth $42.6 Billion
Sam Altman has taken a sovereign-wealth-fund proposal, modelled on Alaska's, to President Trump and two cabinet secretaries. Rival laboratories have not signed on, and any deal would likely require an act of Congress.
July 4, 2026 - NATIONAL
OpenAI Proposes a 5 Percent Federal Stake, Worth $42.6 Billion, in Bid to Seed a Public Wealth Fund
Sam Altman has taken the concept directly to President Trump, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and has floated extending the arrangement to Anthropic, Google, and Meta.
July 2, 2026 - NATIONAL
Meta Contractors Posed as Minors to Probe Rival A.I. Chatbots, Wired Investigation Finds
The covert project, code-named 'Cannes' and run through the contractor Covalen, sent more than 45,000 prompts about suicide, sex and drugs to ChatGPT, Gemini and Character.AI — none of which knew the testing was happening.
June 30, 2026 - NATIONAL
Colorado's A.I. Act Takes Effect Today as a Narrower Successor
The first state law to regulate algorithmic discrimination was rewritten this spring after a lawsuit by Elon Musk's xAI and an intervention by the Justice Department. The bill that arrives today is not the one passed in 2024.
June 30, 2026 - NATIONAL
House Passes Bipartisan Bill Forcing the S.B.A. to Disclose Its Use of A.I.
The S.B.A. Artificial Intelligence Utilization Act, cleared June 23, would require annual reports to Congress on the agency's machine-learning tools, after years of missed federal deadlines.
June 27, 2026 - NATIONAL
U.S. Lifts Block on Anthropic's Mythos 5 for Roughly 100 Vetted Partners
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick cleared the model for a small set of approved companies and federal agencies after a two-week shutdown, and asked OpenAI to gate its new GPT-5.6 family on the same day.
June 27, 2026 - NATIONAL
OpenAI Releases GPT-5.5-Cyber and Opens 'Patch the Planet' to Open-Source Maintainers
The company moved its cyber-focused model from preview to limited release on June 22, paired with an updated Codex Security plugin, a 30-vendor partner program, and an open-source remediation initiative co-founded with Trail of Bits.
June 25, 2026 - NATIONAL
House Discussion Draft Would Freeze State A.I. Development Laws for Three Years
The bipartisan 'Great American Artificial Intelligence Act,' released two days after President Trump's June 2 executive order and weeks after Colorado repealed its landmark statute, would convert what state legislators have called a floor of accountability into a federal ceiling.
June 24, 2026 - NATIONAL
Anthropic's Top Models Remain Offline as U.S. Export Ban Enters Seventh Day
With negotiations between company engineers and Commerce Department officials continuing daily, Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — the first commercial A.I. models ever subjected to U.S. export controls — remain dark for customers worldwide.
June 19, 2026 - NATIONAL
U.S. Orders Anthropic to Pull Fable 5 and Mythos 5, Citing National Security
The Commerce Department's export-control directive — invoked retroactively against a deployed model — bars foreign nationals from accessing Anthropic's two newest systems, forcing the company to take both offline three days after launch.
June 17, 2026 - NATIONAL
U.S. Orders Anthropic to Disable Its Two Most Powerful A.I. Models
The Commerce Department invoked export-control authorities on Friday evening to force the suspension of Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 worldwide, in what appears to be the first government-compelled takedown of a deployed frontier model.
June 15, 2026 - NATIONAL
Bipartisan House Draft Would Freeze State A.I. Development Laws for Three Years
The Great American Artificial Intelligence Act, unveiled by Representatives Jay Obernolte and Lori Trahan, pairs preemption with new transparency mandates on frontier model developers — and arrives as 45 states have introduced their own bills.
June 11, 2026 - NATIONAL
Trump Memo Orders National Security Agencies to Accelerate A.I. Adoption, Rescinding Biden Directive
National Security Presidential Memorandum 11, signed June 5, directs the Pentagon and intelligence community to rapidly onboard frontier models from multiple vendors and authorizes the termination of contracts with A.I. firms that limit military use of their technology.
June 10, 2026 - NATIONAL
Bipartisan House Draft Would Set First Federal A.I. Framework, Freezing State Laws for Three Years
The 269-page 'Great American Artificial Intelligence Act of 2026,' released by Representatives Jay Obernolte and Lori Trahan, would codify a federal standards center and preempt state regulation of model development — drawing immediate condemnation from A.I. safety groups.
June 8, 2026 - NATIONAL
Trump Signs Executive Order Inviting Federal Review of Frontier A.I. Models
The order, signed June 2 after a postponed May ceremony, asks developers to voluntarily submit advanced models for up to 30 days of cybersecurity vetting before public release.
June 7, 2026 - NATIONAL
Trump Signs Executive Order Inviting Early Federal Review of Frontier A.I. Models
The June 2 directive asks developers to voluntarily submit their most powerful systems for a 30-day national security evaluation before release, a shift from the administration's earlier hands-off posture.
June 7, 2026 - NATIONAL
Bipartisan House Draft Would Bar State A.I. Laws for Three Years, Mandate Federal Audits of Frontier Labs
The 269-page Great American Artificial Intelligence Act of 2026, unveiled Thursday by Reps. Jay Obernolte and Lori Trahan, drew immediate condemnation from safety and accountability groups who called the preemption provision a 'generational mistake.'
June 7, 2026 - NATIONAL
Trump Orders Voluntary Federal Review of Frontier A.I. Models Before Release
The executive order, signed privately on Tuesday after an earlier draft was pulled under industry pressure, gives the government a 30-day prerelease window — a third of what the scrapped version proposed.
June 6, 2026 - NATIONAL
Anthropic, Going Wider on Wall Street, Names J.P. Morgan, Goldman and Citi as Claude Users
At an invite-only briefing in New York on May 5, the company disclosed production deployments at five of the largest financial institutions and debuted Claude Opus 4.7, a model tuned for financial work.
May 5, 2026