This primer introduces various aspects of safety standards and regulations for industrial-scale AI development: what they are, their potential and limitations, some proposals for their substance, and recent policy developments. Key points are:

• Standards are formal specifications of best practices, which can influence regulations. Regulations are requirements established by governments.
• Cutting-edge AI development is being done with individual companies spending over $100 million dollars. This industrial scale may enable narrowly targeted and enforceable regulation to reduce the risks of cutting-edge AI development.
• Regulation of industrial-scale AI development faces various potential limitations, including the increasing efficiency of AI training algorithms and AI hardware, regulatory capture, and under-resourced regulators. However, these are not necessarily fatal challenges.
• AI regulation also faces challenges with international enforcement and competitiveness—these will be discussed further later in this course.
• Existing proposals for AI safety practices include: AI model evaluations and associated restrictions, training plan evaluations, information security, safeguarded deployment, and safe training. However, these ideas are technically immature to varying degrees.
• As of August 2023, China appears close to setting sweeping regulations on public-facing generative AI, the EU appears close to passing AI regulations that mostly exclude generative AI, and US senators are trying to move forward AI regulation.

Source:

https://aisafetyfundamentals.com/governance-blog/standards-and-regulations-primer

Narrated for AI Safety Fundamentals by Perrin Walker of TYPE III AUDIO.

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A podcast by BlueDot Impact.

Learn more on the AI Safety Fundamentals website.