Independent Evaluation for Technology Safety

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Companies in the industry claiming product safety before deployment should not be taken at face value. The decision on product safety should not rest solely on the companies, but should be independently evaluated. Companies should not deflect concerns by listing a few safety measures as there could be other unaddressed issues. The only way to move forward is through independent experts with no conflict of interest. Putting in the hard work is crucial for ensuring technology is developed properly and safely.

This week, a group of current and former employees from OpenAI and Google DeepMind penned an open letter accusing the industry’s leading companies of prioritizing profits over safety. This comes after a spate of high profile departures from OpenAI, including co-founder Ilya Sutskever and senior researcher Jan Leike, as well as reports that OpenAI has gone to great lengths to silence would-be whistleblowers.

The writers of the open letter argue that researchers have a “right to warn” the public about AI risks and laid out a series of principles that would protect that right. In this episode, we sit down with one of those writers: William Saunders, who left his job as a research engineer at OpenAI in February. William is now breaking the silence on what he saw at OpenAI that compelled him to leave the company and to put his name to this letter.

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