Governing AI safety through independent audits

Highly automated systems are becoming omnipresent. They range in function from self-driving vehicles to advanced medical diagnostics and afford many benefits. However, there are assurance challenges that have become increasingly visible in high-profile crashes and incidents. Governance of such systems is critical to garner widespread public trust. Governance principles have been previously proposed offering aspirational guidance to automated system developers; however, their implementation is often impractical given the excessive costs and processes required to enact and then enforce the principles. This Perspective, authored by an international and multidisciplinary team across government organizations, industry and academia, proposes a mechanism to drive widespread assurance of highly automated systems: independent audit. As proposed, independent audit of AI systems would embody three ‘AAA’ governance principles of prospective risk Assessments, operation Audit trails and system Adherence to jurisdictional requirements. Independent audit of AI systems serves as a pragmatic approach to an otherwise burdensome and unenforceable assurance challenge

An extensive study on the boron junctions formed by optimized pre-spike∕multiple-pulse flash lamp annealing schemes : junction formation, stability and leakage

In this work, the electrical activation of Boron in Germanium pre‐amorphized silicon substrate upon flash lamp annealing (FLA) is investigated. We demonstrate that FLA helps in the reduction of the EOR defects, resulting in minimal transient enhanced diffusion and dopant deactivation effect. It has also been observed that the junction stability improves with the increasing number of flash pulses, which is clearly reflected by the dopant deactivation level upon post‐thermal treatment. In another FLA scheme, the spike rapid thermal annealing (RTA) performed prior to the flash further enhances the junction stability. However, this pre‐spike RTA step induces extensive dopant diffusion and an overall degradation in sheet resistance. The above observations are concluded to be due to the different extent of silicon interstitial supersaturation that can be explained by the interactions between the extended defects and dopants. Lastly, leakage current for the junctions formed under different FLA schemes are compared. Typical single pulse FLA junction shows high leakage current and it can be reduced through the additional pulses of FLA or effectively suppressed by the pre‐spike RTA flash scheme. In addition, it is also found that the junction leakage can be correlated to the FLA residual defects.Published versio

A Method to Identify Best Available Technologies (BAT) for Hydrogenation Reactors in the Pharmaceutical Industry

International audienceA methodology that may be applied to help in the choice of a continuous reactor is proposed. In this methodology, the chemistry is first described through the use of eight simple criteria (rate, thermicity, deactivation, solubility, conversion, selectivity, viscosity, and catalyst). Then, each reactor type is also analyzed from their capability to answer each of these criteria. A final score is presented using "spider diagrams." Lower surfaces indicate the best reactor choice. The methodology is exemplified with a model substrate nitrobenzene and a target pharmaceutical intermediate, N-methyl-4-nitrobenzenemethanesulphonamide, and for three different continuous reactors, i.e., stirred tank, fixed bed, and an advanced microstructured reactor. Comparison with the traditional batch reactor is also provided