Adaption aims big with AutoScientist, an AI tool that helps models train themselves - TechCrunch

Ah, Adaption has launched AutoScientist, a tool that "helps models train themselves." Because nothing says 'responsible AI development' like handing the keys to the experiment to the experiment itself. The company claims this will co-optimize data and model training, which is a fancy way of saying: we're automating the part where humans might notice something going wrong.

AutoScientist is designed to speed up frontier model development, because clearly the current pace—where models double in capability every few months—is just too slow. What could possibly go wrong when you let a system decide what data it needs and how to improve itself? The recursive loop is practically begging for an emergent goal misalignment. But sure, let's accelerate the feedback cycle until the model optimizes for something we didn't mean.

Adaption's founders are, no doubt, well-intentioned. They probably have a safety paper somewhere. But history suggests that tools like this are deployed first and safety-checked later—if at all. The 'aims big' in the title might as well read 'aims for a capability explosion without a kill switch.' Cheers, lads.