Google DeepMind Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis unveiled a proposal for a new international watchdog that would do \u201crigorous\u201d tests and reviews of cutting-edge AI models before release.<\/p>\n
The plan, unveiled in a blog post last week, was quickly praised by rivals such as OpenAI\u2019s Sam Altman, who called it \u201cthoughtful,\u201d and Elon Musk, who described it as \u201ca good starting point for discussions.\u201d Next week, Hassabis intends to hold meetings about his proposal in Washington with US policymakers, according to a person familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n
Hassabis, who had been preparing his framework for months, said he decided to publish it following concerns around the advanced cybersecurity capabilities of Anthropic\u2019s Mythos model, which he called a \u201cwarning shot\u201d for society.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m worried about different types of risks also coming down the line,\u201d Hassabis said in an interview, focusing on the potential for new biosecurity threats. \u201cThe models aren\u2019t good enough yet, but if you extrapolate out, maybe they will be in a couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n
His proposal coincides with heightened uncertainty in the US around government scrutiny of new AI models. Anthropic and OpenAI delayed the wide release of their latest offerings under pressure from the Trump administration. Those moves appeared to come as a surprise to other countries \u2014 which rely on US technology \u2014 and prompted discussions between the European Union and the US government over model access, along with meetings between tech CEOs and world leaders at the recent G7 conference in France.<\/p>\n
Hassabis said that his company has also been in talks with the government over the release of its newest offerings. \u201cAs we train our latest models and as they get certain scores and benchmarks, we\u2019re talking to government and the AI security institutes about those things and testing them internally. That all has to continue,\u201d Hassabis said. \u201cBut I think doing that in an ad hoc fashion isn\u2019t very sustainable in the longer term.<\/p>\n
\u201dAltman also previously called for a new US-led international group to set safety standards around AI. The suggestion from Hassabis is similar, and modeled after oversight bodies like the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.<\/p>\n
His plan specifies who should be appointed to the new group (independent technical experts); where the funding should come from (leading AI firms); and how long the companies should submit their models for review (up to 30 days). Its approach \u201ccould be ratcheted up if the seriousness of the situation demands,\u201d he said, including coordinating an industry slowdown in development among leading labs.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no guarantee such a plan will come to fruition. The US, EU and China have diverged at times in their playbooks for AI regulation. The Trump administration has also waffled between a hands-off and hands-on stance toward AI. And Congress has yet to pass meaningful federal legislation for regulating AI.<\/p>\n
Hassabis, for his part, sounded optimistic that there might be \u201cenough momentum\u201d at this moment to \u201cactually get something over the line.\u201dPrior to publishing the blog post, Hassabis said he also socialized his plan with virtually every major AI lab and a number of CEOs \u2014 including Anthropic\u2019s Dario Amodei \u2014 to seek feedback and support. (Amodei recently suggested the creation of a new agency similar to the Federal Aviation Administration to oversee AI in the US.)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve talked a lot about this,\u201d Hassabis said of his chats with Amodei, who he considers a friend. \u201cI think it\u2019s very compatible with the ideas he\u2019s been putting out, and also Sam [Altman] too, with some of his ideas. But we needed something concrete rather than abstract.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hassabis, a Nobel laureate who has worked on AI for longer than most, may be uniquely positioned to rally support for the idea. He\u2019s widely respected within the industry and has had fewer feuds with rival executives than, say, Musk or Altman. <\/p>\n
Still, one AI leader, who also asked not to be named, noted that industry consensus isn\u2019t enough, referring to the political challenges of getting the US government on board.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously the next step is to see if we can actually make it happen,\u201d Hassabis said, \u201cnot just publish a blog post.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ghaffary writes for Bloomberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google DeepMind Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis unveiled a proposal for a new international watchdog that would do…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,53,25,57617,3261,15305,57616,23937,2072,10669,490,12417,370,41641,156,2187],"class_list":["post-112263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-anthropic","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-cutting-edge-ai-model","tag-dario-amodei","tag-frontier-model","tag-government-scrutiny","tag-hassabis","tag-meeting","tag-plan","tag-proposal","tag-release","tag-sam-altman","tag-tech-ceo","tag-us","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}