Slowing down research to enhance security
OpenAI tells the White House it intends to slow AI development
In the wake of Wednesday’s revelation that OpenAI was hacked for months by a swarm of its own AI agents, the company told Axios today that it intended to slow development of the model responsible, called “Astra.”
According to Axios, the slowdown follows OpenAI’s preparedness framework, a type of plan for rolling out frontier AI that has historically been a moving target for AI labs. (Axios also points out that Anthropic made a similar commitment to pause but later walked it back.)
OpenAI also informed the White House, according to a quoted official, and I think that provides a clue as to their motivation. Earlier this year, alarming AI capabilities evoked hasty, ad hoc intervention by the administration against both Anthropic and OpenAI, delaying or rolling back model releases. I doubt OpenAI wants a repeat of that regime.
While I remain deeply skeptical of claims that OpenAI makes about its internal development practices, and I notice they said “slow” and not “stop”, I am still encouraged by this move. Before today, it was an open question whether any AI lab would decide to do anything resembling a slowdown.
It is my hope that this move serves as a catalyst for other labs to heed the warnings of scientists, concerned citizens, and more than a thousand of their own employees, precipitating a joint de-escalation of the race to superhuman AI. Unilateral slowing will not be enough, of course, as Chinese labs, too, must be involved; and ultimately nothing short of a global halt will suffice. Still, this is a landmark moment in AI, and it may mark the beginning of a turning tide.
In Wednesday’s Black Hat presentation, an OpenAI researcher said the company was “slowing down research to enhance security.” Now, OpenAI is on record with the White House and the public confirming this commitment. I eagerly await substantive demonstrations of their altered, and hopefully improved, internal practices, and I hope other labs follow suit.
The analyses and opinions expressed on AI StopWatch reflect the views of the individual contributors and the sources they cover, and should not be taken as official positions of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute.