Chris Fall, director of the U.S. Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI, formerly known as the U.S. AI Safety Institute), has resigned after just three months on the job.
As Reuters reported, Fall’s departure, who was previously appointed to head the federal AI testing agency at the Commerce Department, marks the latest shake-up in the Trump administration’s plans for AI.
The Commerce Department did not provide a reason for Fall’s resignation, but announced that his position would be replaced by another interim role.
This comes as Arvind Raman, a former engineering dean at Purdue University who heads the Commerce Department office that oversees AI testing laboratories, will temporarily fill Fall’s role.
The fall departure marks the latest shift in President Trump’s approach to AI, with the president, who returns to office in 2025, saying the federal government should take a hands-off approach to high tech.
Since then, he has taken a more active role in overseeing technology, but his public statements and policies seem to change weekly.
The AI Institute is responsible for testing unreleased models for vulnerabilities in collaboration with leading AI labs such as Anthropic, Google’s DeepMind, and OpenAI.
The group is staffed by scientists and engineers and focuses on calculating the “demonstrable risks” posed by advanced AI models, according to the institute’s website.
The move reflects a determination that America’s adversaries want to limit opportunities to use AI to develop chemical and biological weapons or destroy data used to train America’s AI models.
