OpenAI says US govt will get to see ChatGPT 5 before anyone else ...
OpenAI has announced a partnership with the U.S. AI Safety Institute. As part of this collaboration, OpenAI will provide the Institute with early access to its next foundational model, ChatGPT-5. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the partnership with the federal body aims to ensure that the upcoming AI models are safe and reliable before their public release.
Partnership Details
Altman announced the collaboration in a recent post on the platform X, sharing that "our team has been working with the U.S. AI Safety Institute on an agreement where we would provide early access to our next foundational model so that we can work together to push forward the science of AI evaluations."
Under this partnership, the U.S. AI Safety Institute, formally established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is tasked with developing guidelines and standards for AI measurement and policy, ensuring safety protocols are robust and empirically validated.
Concerns and Response
The partnership announcement between OpenAI and the U.S. AI Safety Institute comes amid growing concerns about AI safety and the direction of OpenAI's priorities. Earlier this year in May, OpenAI disbanded its Superalignment team, which was dedicated to ensuring that AI models align with human intentions and do not go 'rogue'. After this disbandment, many key team members left OpenAI, including Jan Leike and co-founder Ilya Sutskever. Leike later joined Anthropic AI, while Sutskever founded a new AI safety startup, Safe Superintelligence Inc.
Leike even expressed frustration over OpenAI's lack of promised resources, particularly compute power, which was supposed to support safety efforts. He criticised OpenAI's leadership for prioritising the launch of new products over ensuring safety. However, responding to these concerns, Altman reiterated the company's commitment to safety.
Previous Collaborations
Notably, OpenAI's partnership with the U.S. AI Safety Institute is not its first collaboration with government bodies on AI safety. Last year, both OpenAI and DeepMind agreed to share their AI models with the UK government, underscoring a growing trend of collaboration between AI developers and regulatory bodies.
Additionally, OpenAI's appointment of retired U.S. Army General Paul M. Nakasone to its board of directors to focus on security and governance announced his appointment. OpenAI wrote in its blog post that "Nakasone's appointment reflects OpenAI's commitment to safety and security, and underscores the growing significance of cybersecurity as the impact of AI technology continues to grow."
