AI Safety Audits: Former OpenAI Chief Launches New Institute
Miles Brundage, a well-known former policy researcher at OpenAI, is launching an institute dedicated to a simple idea: AI companies shouldn’t be allowed to grade their own homework.
Today Brundage formally announced the AI Verification and Evaluation research Institute (AVERI), a new nonprofit aimed at pushing the idea that frontier AI models should be subject to external auditing. AVERI is also working to establish AI auditing standards.
The launch coincides with the publication of a research paper, coauthored by Brundage and more than 30 AI safety researchers and governance experts, that lays out a detailed framework for how independent audits of the companies building the world’s most powerful AI systems could work.
Brundage spent seven years at OpenAI, as a policy researcher and an advisor on how the company should prepare for the advent of human-like artificial general intelligence. he left the company in October 2024.
“One of the things I learned while working at OpenAI is that companies are figuring out the norms of this kind of thing on their own,” Brundage told Fortune. “Ther’s no one forcing them to work with third-party experts to make sure that things are safe and secure. They kind of write their own rules.”
That creates risks. Although the leading AI labs conduct safety and security testing and publish technical reports on the results of many of these evaluations, some of which they conduct with the help of external “red team” organizations, right now consumers, business and governments simply have to trust what the AI labs say about these tests. No one is forcing them to conduct these evaluations or report them according to any particular set of standards.
Brundage said that in other industries, auditing is used to provide the public-including consumers, business partners, and to some degree regulators-assurance that products are safe and have been tested in a rigorous way.
“If you go out and buy a vacuum cleaner,you know,there will be components in it,like batteries,that have been tested by independent laboratories according to rigorous safety standards to make sure it isn’t going to catch on fire,” he said.
New institute will push for policies and standards
Brundage said that AVERI was interested in policies that woudl encourage the AI labs to move to a system of rigorous external auditing,as well as researching what the standards should be for those audits,but was not interested in conducting audits itself.
“We’re a think tank. We’re trying to understand and shape this transition,” he said. “We’re not trying to get all the Fortune 500 companies as customers.”
He said existing public accounting, auditing, assurance, and testing firms could move into the business of auditing AI safety, or that startups would be established to take on this role.
AVERI said it has raised $7.5 million toward a goal of $13 million to cover 14 staff and two years of operations. Its funders so far include Halcyon Futures, Fathom, Coefficient Giving, former Y Combinator president Geoff Ralston, Craig Falls, Good Forever Foundation, Sympatico Ventures, and the AI Underwriting Company.
The organization says it has also received donations from current and former non-executive employees of frontier AI companies. “These are people who know where the bodies are buried” and “would love to see more accountability,” Brundage said.
insurance companies or investors could force AI safety audits
Brundage said that there could be several mechanisms that would encourage AI firms to begin to hire independent auditors. One is that big businesses that are buying AI models may demand audits to have some assurance that the AI models they are buying will function as promised and don’t pose hidden risks.
insurance companies may also push for the establishment of AI auditing. For instance,insurers offering business continuity insurance to large companies that use AI models for key business processes could require auditing as a condition of un
Summary of the Article: The Growing Need for Independent AI Auditing
This article discusses the increasing calls for independent auditing of the safety and security of AI models,especially those being developed by fast-growing startups like OpenAI and Anthropic. Here’s a breakdown of the key points:
* Why Auditing is Needed: As AI labs potentially go public, they face increased legal and financial risk. A failure to proactively assess and mitigate AI risks through independent audits could lead to shareholder lawsuits or SEC prosecution if the AI causes harm and impacts share prices.
* Regulatory Landscape:
* US: Currently lacks federal AI regulation. The Trump management is discouraging state-level AI regulation without proposing a national standard.
* EU: The EU AI Act, while not explicitly requiring audits, leans towards them. Its “Code of Practice” mandates external evaluation access for high-risk models. The act also requires “conformity assessments” for AI used in high-risk applications (loans,benefits,healthcare).
* Proposed Framework: AI Assurance Levels: AVERI proposes a tiered system of “AI Assurance Levels” (1-4), with Level 4 offering the highest level of security suitable for international agreements.
* Challenges to Implementation:
* Lack of Qualified Auditors: Finding individuals with the necessary combination of technical AI expertise and governance/audit experience is challenging. those with the skills are frequently enough recruited by the AI companies themselves.
* Building Expertise: The solution proposed is to create “dream teams” combining experts from audit firms, cybersecurity, AI safety nonprofits, and academia.
* Proactive vs. Reactive Approach: The author hopes to establish auditing infrastructure before a major AI-related crisis occurs, learning from the history of regulation in industries like nuclear power and food safety.
In essence, the article argues that independent AI auditing is becoming increasingly crucial for responsible AI development, risk management, and future legal/financial stability, and that proactive steps are needed to build the necessary infrastructure and expertise.