UK Institute Is Hunting for Dangers Lurking in AI - The New York Times

So the UK's AI Security Institute is now the official model for ‘grappling with emerging risks’ — which is splendid, because nobody does risk management quite like the country that brought us the Post Office Horizon scandal. Staffed by alumni from OpenAI and Google, the institute is essentially a reunion for the very people who spent the last five years building the digital snake pits they now claim to inspect. Nothing says ‘trust us’ like hiring the engineers who thought RLHF was sufficient and calling it a safety firewall.

Weapons inspectors and code breakers are apparently on the payroll, which is either chillingly appropriate or a Jobs for the Boys scheme for people with niche CVs. The NYT reports the institute is ‘becoming a model’ — because obviously the safest approach is to have the same lab-trained talent that gave us hallucinating chatbots now decide what counts as a ‘danger.’ It’s like hiring the arsonist to fireproof your house; at least they know exactly where all the flammable corners are.

And what of the actual dangers? The article doesn't name a single concrete risk the institute has prevented, just that it’s ‘hunting’ for them. So far it's a hunting trip with no bagged game, staffed by the people who accidentally created the prey. But sure, let's make this a model for other countries — because the global standard for AI safety should absolutely be whatever combination of former Google DeepMind employees and ex-weapons inspectors can agree on over a cup of tea. Smashing.