Many talented lawyers do not contribute to AI Safety, simply because they've never had a chance to work with AIS researchers or don’t know what the field entails.

I am hopeful that this can improve if we create more structured opportunities for cooperation. And this is the main motivation behind the upcoming AI Safety Law-a-thon, organised by AI-Plans:^[1] 

A hackathon where every team pairs one lawyer with one technical AI safety researcher. Each pair will tackle challenges drawn up from real legal bottlenecks and overlooked AI safety risks. 

From my time in the tech industry, my suspicion is that if more senior counsel actually understood alignment risks, frontier AI deals would face far more scrutiny. Right now, most law firms would focus on IP rights or privacy clauses when giving advice to their clients- not on whether model alignment drift could blow up the contract six months after signing.

We launched the event one day ago, and we already have an impressive lineup of senior counsel from top firms and regulators. What we still need are technical AI safety people to pair with them!

If you join, you'll help stress-test the legal scenarios and point out the alignment risks that are not salient to your counterpart (they’ll be obvious to you, but not to them).

 You’ll also get the chance to put your own questions to experienced attorneys.

📅 25–26 October 
🌍 Hybrid: online + in-person (London)

If you’re up for it, sign up here: https://luma.com/8hv5n7t0 

Feel free to DM me if you want to raise any queries!

 

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   NOTE: I really want to improve how I communicate updates like these. If this sounds too salesy or overly persuasive, it would really help me if you comment and suggest how to improve the wording. 

   I find this more effective than just downvoting- but of course, do so if you want. Thank you in advance!.

I think you're thinking about this in a very useful way!

If we can narrow down a specific (but broad enough) set of capabilities that we consider illegal to incentivise, then this would be workable.

And yes, when I say "fines as cost of doing business": this is a very common conclusion that DPOs^[1] in Europe come to when asked about the effectiveness of GDPR enforcement. 

It's way too easy for big corporations to just calculate and set off the cost of the fine against the profit margin produced by "the not compliant action".

Which is why I do support the idea of "banning" dangerous development, and how I started thinking about the definitions to begin with.

Again, really useful comment!

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   Data Protection Officers

Thank you! I think this is deeply subjective and I disclaimed that I'm still forming my thoughts around this.

Yes, the business justification is the cost-effective angle. But I can also see how people in the sector are almost started to be "shamed" for not using AI, and this type of incentive ("use it ot lose it, and be subject to bureaucracy") will only lead to more of this. 

Coming from a data privacy background, I guess I'm particularly allergic to anything that forces people to agree to things, that's not consent. Also, it'll become less and less common to see 100% human generated emails and reports. Even for functions that wouldn't typically use AI.

I guess I'm extra alert (as a data and RespAI person) for the moment people really cannot opt out from AI use in their roles... 

But I 100% accept that there isn't an obvious connection, thanks for raising it.

Oh :/. Thank you for bringing this to my attention!

This is a very valuable clarification, and I agree^[1]. I really appreciate your focus on policy feasibility and concrete approaches.

From my own experience: most people outside AI Safety in the regulatory space, either: lack sufficient background knowledge about timelines and existential risk to meaningfully engage with these concerns and commit to enforceable measures^[2] , or those with some familiarity become more skeptical due to the lack of consensus on probabilities, timelines, and definitions.

I will be following this initiative closely and promoting it to the best of my ability. 

EDIT: I've signed with my institutional email and title. 

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   For transparency: I knew about the red lines project before it was published. Furthermore, Charbel / CeSIA's past work have shifted my own views on policy and international cooperation. 

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   I expect that the popularity of IABIED and more involvent from AI Safety figures in policy will shift the Overton window in this regard.

(Epistemic status: This is a recent experience that disappointed me personally. I'm not making formal claims or making representations for the specific company. I'm sharing this because it shifted my thinking about AI adoption incentives in ways that might be relevant to this community's discussions about "responsible AI").

I received an email to my corporate account informing me that my MS Copilot license was revoked. 
Why? To save money, the company I work at revokes employees' Copilot licenses if they "fail to use it" for 30 days in a row... 

I've been on annual leave, and I simply did not need Copilot during the last month. So, I had to get my line manager to request that my license is reinstated if I wanted to have access to the only "approved" AI tool available to us.

In data privacy, we use the term "dark pattern" to refer to covert UX practices that trick users into accepting terms that don't respect their data rights, or the general principle of users' choice. It's difficult to explain why, but this practice ("punishing" a worker for not using an AI tool for a month) sparks the same instincts in me as manipulative dark patterns. 

I will be more inclined towards using AI for everyday tasks because, if I don't and my license gets revoked, I'll have to deal with an annoying bureaucratic process to get it back. I think there is a difference between allowing responsible use of technology and low-key forcing your staff to use AI. This sounds more like the latter.

This (and yesterday's debate about LLM usage) really makes me second-guess some beliefs I had about "reponsible AI" practices. I do not think I am ready to write a more thorough comment about it^[1], but I thought this may be interesting for others to read.

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   I'll probably write something on Linkedin, because I do want other people in the industry to see this. I'll also cross-post to my Substack. 

Thank you! Curious to know what you think of the recent Global Call for AI Red Lines - Signed by Nobel Laureates, Former Heads of State, and 200+ Prominent Figures put forward by CeSIA. It is not an "AGI ban", nor does it actually propose concrete red lines- it just demands that such red lines are agreed upon by global leaders. 

Re "a big reason I tend towards technical work over governance myself"- yes! I am very grateful for those focusing on "actually solving the problem" rather than preparing for catastrophic events. I am sitting on the latter, yet my biggest hope for the future sits with people who work on the technical research side :).

 Again, one of my favorite comments in this post! I also appreciate you organising your thoughts at the best of your capacity while acknowledging the unknowns. 

"The point of this heavy-handed parable is that as long as the frontier labs are intent on building superintelligence, and as long as we allow them to play cute legal games, then our odds may be very bad indeed." I obviously agree, painfully so. And I really appreciate the tangible measures you propose (caps on training runs, controls of data centres). 

Regarding the "Mutually Assured Destruction point": About two days ago, Dan Hendrycs released an article called AI Deterrence is our Best Option. Some of the arguments you raised (in connection to your national security experience) reminded me of his Mutual Assured AI Malfunction deterrence framework. I'm curious to know your thoughts!

I am definetly not an international cooperation policy expert^[1]. In fact, these discussions and the deep thinking that have gone towards them are giving me a renewed respect for international policy experts. @Harold also raised very good points about the different behavious towards "ambiguity" (or what I perceive as ambiguous) in different legal systems. In his case, speaking from his experience with the Japanese legal system. 

In the future, I will focus on leveraging what I know of international private law (contract laws in multinational deals) to re-think legal strategy using these insights. 

This has been very helpful! 

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   My legal background is in corporate law, and I have experience working at multinational tech companies and Fintech startups (also, some human rights law experience). Which is why I focus on predictable strategies that tech companies could adopt to "Goodhart" their compliance with AI laws or a prohibition to develop AGI. 

This was added raw by me 🤣 "We don't have this luxury: we cannot afford an AGI ban that is "80% avoided." In relation to the previous example about tax avoidance.

As I said to Kave: this is really helpful. I'll keep this feedback present for future occasions. I really believe in the importance of a well-specified AGI ban. I'd rather not risk people taking it less seriously because of details like these! 🙏🏼.

I actually think that this re-write of the policy would be beneficial. It may not be the default opinion but, for me, I find it better to have a reference document which is well-specified. It also promotes transparency of decision -making, rather than risking moderation looking very subjective or "vibes-based". 

As I mentioned in the DM: There's probably an unfair disadvantage on policy or legal writing being "more similar" to how an LLM sounds. Naturally, once edited using an LLM, it will likely be even more LLM-sounding than writing about philosophy or fiction. Maybe that's just skill issue 🤣 but that's why I vote for "yes" on you adding that change. Again, I will keep this feedback very present in the future (thank you for encouraging me to think more naturally and less over edited. Tbh, I need to untrain myself from "no mistakes allowed" legal mindset ☺️).

Fun ending remark: I was in a CAIDP meeting recently where we were advised to use a bunch of emojis for policy social media posts. And a bullet pointed structure... But when I've done it, people said it makes it look AI generated... 

In the end, exchanges like these are helping me understand what gets through to people and what doesn't. So, thank you!