OpenAI Offers A New Policy Blueprint

Right after a new Executive Order seems like an excellent time to offer Open AI’s new document: Democratic Governance of Frontier AI: A Blueprint For A Federal Framework. Open AI: We also see early signs of recursive self-improvement (RSI) in today’s systems: where AI development is itself accelerated by AI. We expect this to increase competitive pressures among developers and nations, and create governance challenges that existing institutions are not equipped to address. As RSI emerges, societies will need ways to shape the trajectory of AI development and ensure that it serves human interests. I choose the glass half full view of the above statement. Yes, this is not exactly leveling with you about the full scope of the problem, but at this point, I’ll take it. OpenAI praises democracy, notes the United States is in a unique position, and calls for transparency and state capacity, especially the ability to evaluate new models, on the SB 53 model. They call for CAISI to be empowered, for good government, for maintaining our compute advantage and several other good ideas. Implementation details matter a lot, but this document exceeds expectations a lot. Peter Wildeford: OPENAI: “We also see early signs of recursive self-improvement in today’s systems”. RSI is “potentially the most consequential frontier safety issue of the coming decade.” Shakeel: NEW: OpenAI just released a blueprint for a federal frontier AI safety framework. It calls for CAISI to perform a mandatory evaluation process of “the most capable frontier models” — but explicitly says “CAISI’s role should be to conduct evaluations and recommend mitigations — not to approve or block deployments.” It says companies should “implement appropriate safeguards” and that there should be “meaningful accountability mechanisms” if companies fail to comply with “safety obligations,” though it’s unclear about what exactly should happen if CAISI or internal evals suggest a model is too dangerous to deploy. It also call