The U.S. Government Just Put OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Under Lock And Key

The Trump administration has instructed OpenAI to restrict the upcoming release of its next-generation artificial intelligence model, GPT-5.6. Rather than making the software available to the general public upon launch, the White House requires the company to limit distribution to a select group of government-approved partners.

According to a report by The Information, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman detailed the directive in an internal staff memorandum. The communication explained that the federal government intends to review and approve access on a “customer-by-customer” basis during an initial preview phase. Altman noted that this restrictive framework does not represent OpenAI’s long-term deployment strategy and stated that the company aims to establish a more sustainable distribution method in the future.

Reports from CNN indicate that both OpenAI and federal officials view the capabilities of GPT-5.6 as comparable to Anthropic’s Mythos model. Government representatives have expressed an intent to collaborate with frontier AI laboratories to develop unified approaches for managing the challenges associated with scaling highly advanced technology.

This directive follows recent regulatory actions by the U.S. Department of Commerce involving Fable, a version of the Mythos model equipped with specialized safety guardrails designed to prevent the exploitation of software vulnerabilities. Following findings by Amazon researchers demonstrating methods to bypass those safety restrictions, federal authorities ordered Anthropic to suspend access for non-U.S. citizens both inside and outside the United States, including Anthropic’s own foreign-born personnel.

Identity Verification Measures

In response to these compliance mandates, Anthropic is reportedly developing mechanisms to adhere to the revised regulatory framework. Updates to the company’s privacy policy introduce a “Verification Data” category intended to facilitate Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols and digital identity verification. This framework may eventually require users to submit government-issued identification and biometric facial data to verify citizenship before gaining access to advanced AI models.

Filed in Robots. Read more about ChatGPT, Donald Trump and OpenAI.