AI Safety Newsletter

AI Safety Newsletter #36: Voluntary Commitments are Insufficient 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 
 

 

 

 
 AI Safety Newsletter 

 Subscribe Sign in AI Safety Newsletter #36: Voluntary Commitments are Insufficient

 Plus, a Senate AI Policy Roadmap, and Chapter 1: An Overview of Catastrophic Risks

 Corin Katzke , Julius Simonelli , and Dan Hendrycks May 30, 2024 10 2 Share 

 Welcome to the AI Safety Newsletter by the Center for AI Safety . We discuss developments in AI and AI safety. No technical background required. 

 Subscribe Voluntary Commitments are Insufficient 

 AI companies agree to RSPs in Seoul. Following the second AI Global Summit held in Seoul, the UK and Republic of Korea governments announced that 16 major technology organizations, including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and xAI have agreed to a new set of Frontier AI Safety Commitments .  

 Some commitments from the agreement include:

 Assessing risks posed by AI models and systems throughout the AI lifecycle.

 Setting thresholds for severe risks, defining when a model or system would pose intolerable risk if not adequately mitigated.

 Keeping risks within defined thresholds, such as by modifying system behaviors and implementing robust security controls.

 Potentially halting development or deployment if risks cannot be sufficiently mitigated. 

 These commitments amount to what Anthropic has termed Responsible Scaling Policies (RSPs). Getting frontier AI labs to develop and adhere to RSPs has been a key goal of some AI safety political advocacy — and, if labs follow through on their commitments, that goal will have been largely accomplished. 

 RSPs are useful as one part of a “ defense in depth ” strategy, but they are not sufficient, nor are they worth the majority of the AI safety movement’s political energy. There have been diminishing returns to RSP advocacy since the White House secured voluntary AI safety commitments last year .  

 Crucially, RSPs are voluntary and unenforceable, and companies can violate them without serious repercussions. Despite even the best intentions, AI companies are susceptible to pressures from profit motives that can erode safety practices. RSPs do not sufficiently guard against those pressures.

 Binding legal requirements to prioritize AI safety are necessary. In a recent essay for the Economist , Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley draw on their experience as former OpenAI board members to argue that AI companies can’t be trusted to govern themselves. Instead—as is the case in other industries—government must establish effective safety regulation.  

 One promising area of regulation is compute security and governan

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