Frontier AI Regulation: Managing Emerging Risks to Public Safety

Advanced AI models hold the promise of tremendous benefits for humanity, but society needs to proactively manage the accompanying risks. In this paper, we focus on what we term "frontier AI" models: highly capable foundation models that could possess dangerous capabilities sufficient to pose severe risks to public safety. Frontier AI models pose a distinct regulatory challenge: dangerous capabilities can arise unexpectedly; it is difficult to robustly prevent a deployed model from being misused; and, it is difficult to stop a model's capabilities from proliferating broadly. To address these challenges, at least three building blocks for the regulation of frontier models are needed: (1) standard-setting processes to identify appropriate requirements for frontier AI developers, (2) registration and reporting requirements to provide regulators with visibility into frontier AI development processes, and (3) mechanisms to ensure compliance with safety standards for the development and deployment of frontier AI models. Industry self-regulation is an important first step. However, wider societal discussions and government intervention will be needed to create standards and to ensure compliance with them. We consider several options to this end, including granting enforcement powers to supervisory authorities and licensure regimes for frontier AI models. Finally, we propose an initial set of safety standards. These include conducting pre-deployment risk assessments; external scrutiny of model behavior; using risk assessments to inform deployment decisions; and monitoring and responding to new information about model capabilities and uses post-deployment. We hope this discussion contributes to the broader conversation on how to balance public safety risks and innovation benefits from advances at the frontier of AI development.Comment: Update July 11th: - Added missing footnote back in. - Adjusted author order (mistakenly non-alphabetical among the first 6 authors) and adjusted affiliations (Jess Whittlestone's affiliation was mistagged and Gillian Hadfield had SRI added to her affiliations) Updated September 4th: Various typo

‘She was Like “Don’t Try This” and “Don’t Drink This” and “Don’t Mix These”’: Older Siblings and the Transmission of Embodied Knowledge Surrounding Alcohol Consumption

© 2019 Sage Publications and YOUNG Editorial Group. This article draws on qualitative research conducted with 40 young people, aged 15–24, in the Chorlton and Wythenshawe, Manchester, UK. With a focus on alcohol consumption, this article shows how older siblings transmit embodied knowledge to younger siblings. This article finds that older siblings are an important source of protection for younger siblings when starting their drinking careers. Moreover, they play a fundamental role in facilitating open intragenerational dialogue surrounding alcohol consumption. Through highlighting the important role of older siblings in transmitting embodied knowledge to younger siblings during the transition to adulthood, this article argues that there is a need to encourage greater involvement of siblings in formal educational settings surrounding learning about important issues, such as: alcohol consumption; drug consumption; and relationships and sex education, to help ensure consistent messages

Many Options, Few Solutions: Over 60 My Snakes Converged on a Few Optimal Venom Formulations

Gene expression changes contribute to complex trait variations in both individuals and populations. However, the evolution of gene expression underlying complex traits over macroevolutionary timescales remains poorly understood. Snake venoms are proteinaceous cocktails where the expression of each toxin can be quantified and mapped to a distinct genomic locus and traced for millions of years. Using a phylogenetic generalized linear mixed model, we analyzed expression data of toxin genes from 52 snake species spanning the 3 venomous snake families and estimated phylogenetic covariance, which acts as a measure of evolutionary constraint. We find that evolution of toxin combinations is not constrained. However, although all combinations are in principle possible, the actual dimensionality of phylomorphic space is low, with envenomation strategies focused around only four major toxin families: metalloproteases, three-finger toxins, serine proteases, and phospholipases A2. Although most extant snakes prioritize either a single or a combination of major toxin families, they are repeatedly recruited and lost. We find that over macroevolutionary timescales, the venom phenotypes were not shaped by phylogenetic constraints, which include important microevolutionary constraints such as epistasis and pleiotropy, but more likely by ecological filtering that permits a small number of optimal solutions. As a result, phenotypic optima were repeatedly attained by distantly related species. These results indicate that venoms evolve by selection on biochemistry of prey envenomation, which permit diversity through parallelism, and impose strong limits, since only a few of the theoretically possible strategies seem to work well and are observed in extant snakes

Biogeographic distributions of neotropical trees reflect their directly measured drought tolerances

High levels of species diversity hamper current understanding of how tropical forests may respond to environmental change. In the tropics, water availability is a leading driver of the diversity and distribution of tree species, suggesting that many tropical taxa may be physiologically incapable of tolerating dry conditions, and that their distributions along moisture gradients can be used to predict their drought tolerance. While this hypothesis has been explored at local and regional scales, large continental-scale tests are lacking. We investigate whether the relationship between drought-induced mortality and distributions holds continentally by relating experimental and observational data of drought-induced mortality across the Neotropics to the large-scale bioclimatic distributions of 115 tree genera. Across the different experiments, genera affiliated to wetter climatic regimes show higher drought-induced mortality than dry-affiliated ones, even after controlling for phylogenetic relationships. This pattern is stronger for adult trees than for saplings or seedlings, suggesting that the environmental filters exerted by drought impact adult tree survival most strongly. Overall, our analysis of experimental, observational, and bioclimatic data across neotropical forests suggests that increasing moisture-stress is indeed likely to drive significant changes in floristic composition

Winners and losers in a long-term study of vegetation change at Moor House NNR: Effects of sheep-grazing and its removal on British upland vegetation

We analysed data collected between 1954 and 2000 from nine long-term experiments designed to assess the effects of sheep-grazing versus no-sheep-grazing at Moor House NNR, an Environmental Change Network site. The experiments were set up between 1954 and 1972 across a range of vegetation types typical of much of upland Britain. Data from this type of experiment are often difficult to analyse and we describe the procedures undertaken to prepare the data for analysis. We fitted the resultant data to the British National Vegetation Classification and used ordination techniques to assess the relative positions of the experiments to each other. Finally, we used Generalized Linear Mixed-effects Modelling within a Bayesian framework to model change of species taxonomic/physiognomic groups through time in both sheep-grazed and ungrazed treatments across all nine experiments; variables included species diversity, Shannon–Weiner index and derived data on occurrence and abundance of species groups based on taxonomy and physiognomy. Hurdle analysis was used to model the species groups; this analysis separated the change through time in both probability of occurrence (binomial distribution) and abundance (Poisson distribution). In the sheep-grazed plots (the “business-as-usual” treatment hence here designated the “control”) there was a reduction in species diversity and a decrease in abundance of vascular plants, grasses, lichens, liverworts and mosses; whereas herbs, sedges and shrubs increased. When probability of occurrence was considered, there was a reduction in number of presences of both lichens and liverworts. Thus, the status quo management of continuous sheep-grazing, even though reduced since 1972, has resulted in a marked change in species composition of these plant communities, with some winners and some losers, but overall they support the concept of biotic homogenization. It is likely that some of these changes were driven by external factors such as elevated atmospheric nutrient deposition. Removal of sheep grazing had some positive benefits; with the herbs, mosses, sedges and shrubs increasing, but faster reductions in grasses and liverworts. Sedges + rushes were stable. It suggested that future monitoring schemes might use either the probability of occurrence of liverworts and lichens, or the abundance of lichens, liverworts, grasses and mosses as sensitive indicators of change in upland Britain. Moreover, during the period that Moor House has been protected as a nature reserve some key plant species groups have declined in spite of reductions in grazing pressure. To reverse this trend requires some form of interventionist management. In order to increase the diversity of vascular plants some form of disturbance will probably be needed, but for bryophytes and lichens this remains a research question. If the results from these small-scale experiments are replicated at the landscape scale a reduction of sheep grazing pressure, for example in rewilding schemes, will have little effect on species composition over a 28–44 year period

Hyperglycaemic conditions perturb mouse oocyte in vitro developmental competence via beta-O-linked glycosylation of Heat shock protein 90

STUDY QUESTION What is the effect of beta-O-linked glycosylation (O-GlcNAcylation) on specific proteins in the cumulus-oocyte complex (COC) under hyperglycaemic conditions? SUMMARY ANSWER Heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) was identified and confirmed as being O-GlcNAcylated in mouse COCs under hyperglycaemic conditions (modelled using glucosamine), causing detrimental outcomes for embryo development. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY O-GlcNAcylation of proteins occurs as a result of increased activity of the hexosamine biosynthesis pathway, which provides substrates for cumulus matrix production during COC maturation, and also for O-GlcNAcylation. COCs matured under hyperglycaemic conditions have decreased developmental competence, mediated at least in part through the mechanism of increased O-GlcNAcylation. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION This study was designed to examine the effect of hyperglycaemic conditions (using the hyperglycaemic mimetic, glucosamine) on O-GlcNAc levels in the mouse COC, and furthermore to identify potential candidate proteins which are targets of this modification, and their roles in oocyte maturation. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS COCs from 21-day-old superovulated CBA × C57BL6 F1 hybrid female mice were matured in vitro (IVM). Levels of O-GlcNAcylated proteins, HSP90 and O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT, the enzyme responsible for O-GlcNAcylation) in COCs were measured using western blot, and localization observed using immunocytochemistry. For glycosylated HSP90 levels, and to test OGT-HSP90 interaction, immunoprecipitation was performed prior to western blotting. Embryo development was assessed using in vitro fertilization and embryo culture post-maturation. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE Addition of the hyperglycaemic mimetic glucosamine to IVM medium for mouse COCs increased detectable O-GlcNAcylated protein levels (by western blot and immunocytochemistry), and this effect was reversed using an OGT inhibitor (P < 0.05). HSP90 was identified as a target of O-GlcNAcylation in the COC, and inhibition of HSP90 during IVM reversed glucosamine-induced decreases in oocyte developmental competence (P < 0.05). We also demonstrated the novel finding of an association between HSP90 and OGT in COCs, suggesting a possible client–chaperone relationship. LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION In vitro maturation of COCs was used so that treatment time could be limited to the 17 h of maturation prior to ovulation. Additionally, glucosamine, a hyperglycaemic mimetic, was used because it specifically activates the hexosamine pathway which provides the O-GlcNAc moieties. The results in this study should be confirmed using in vivo models of hyperglycaemia and different HSP90 inhibitors. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS This study leads to a new understanding of how diabetes influences oocyte competence and provides insight into possible therapeutic interventions based on inhibiting HSP90 to improve oocyte quality.L.A. Frank, M.L. Sutton-McDowall, H.M. Brown, D.L. Russell, R.B. Gilchrist, and J.G. Thompso

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700

Erratum to: 36th International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s13054-016-1208-6.]