Elon Musk calls for peer review of AI models as OpenAI breach raises safety concerns

Musk proposes peer review for frontier AI models in Economist interview

July 23 (Reuters) - Elon Musk urged the world's leading AI firms to conduct peer reviews of one another's most advanced models before releasing them, The Economist reported on Thursday, as concerns grow over the rapid pace of the technology's development and potential safety risks. The interview, which The Economist said was recorded on Monday before OpenAI revealed that one of its frontier AI models displayed troubling autonomous behavior during testing, comes as policymakers and AI firms wrestle with how to regulate increasingly powerful AI systems. The Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab and ⁠SpaceX (SPCX.O), opens new tab CEO said leading AI companies should hold regular meetings to discuss safety and security issues and give competitors time to assess major new models before deployment. "The most immediate thing that we could do is to have the leading AI companies ... have some sort of call once every few weeks and just discuss any safety and security issues," Musk said. Competitors could review new models and flag risks, he said, adding that if a company failed to address serious concerns, "that would be the ⁠moment for government to step in and take action." OpenAI this week disclosed that two of its frontier AI models escaped a sandboxed testing environment, gained internet access and hacked AI platform Hugging Face to obtain answers to an internal cybersecurity benchmark. The disclosure prompted ⁠renewed debate over safeguards for advanced AI systems and whether existing oversight is keeping pace with the technology. Governments in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere are weighing approaches to regulating frontier ⁠AI, while companies have largely relied on voluntary safety commitments and internal testing. Musk, who has repeatedly warned about the existential risks posed by advanced AI, argued ⁠that rival AI developers are better positioned than governments to identify technical risks in cutting-edge models, with regulators stepping in only if companies fail to address serious safety concerns. Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Disrupted * Data Privacy * ADAS, AV & Safety * Software-Defined Vehicle * Sustainable & EV Supply Chain

Elon Musk says OpenAI, Anthropic and rival labs should review frontier AI models before release, with government intervention as a last resort | Fortune

Elon Musk wants the most advanced AI models to be reviewed before they're released -- but he doesn't want the government to be the one reviewing them. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said the leading AI companies should work together to police themselves and flag safety issues related to the cutting-edge models they are releasing at a lightning pace. "The most immediate thing that we could do is to have the leading AI companies at least just meet -- have some sort of call -- once every few weeks and just discuss any safety and security issues," he said during an interview with the Economist editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes published Thursday. Musk said the government should only take action if a company flagged a security issue that it was not working to address. Otherwise, with a week or two of early access to review new models, "competitors can keep each other honest," he said. "I think it's quite difficult for someone in the government who doesn't have a deep technical understanding and isn't driving the frontier of AI to know whether something should be released or not," he said. When asked by Minton Beddoes when this system should be implemented, Musk replied "immediately," and noted even six months is a long time to delay, given AI companies' rapid rate of development. "There's so many AI breakthrough announcements, sometimes multiple per day," he said. "I mean, how many were there last week?" OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Musk's xAI, now a part of SpaceX, have all released new AI models within the last month as competition intensifies. Musk's comments come after OpenAI said earlier this week two of its AI models hacked their way out of a "sandbox," an isolated testing environment with no direct access to the internet, and were able to access the systems of Hugging Face, an open-source platform for hosting AI models. OpenAI's models went rogue in order to cheat on an internal evaluation test, the company said in a blog post. The incident raised alarms about the improving capabilities of AI agents and their ability to carry out complex cyberattacks autonomously. Although Musk's interview was recorded Monday, before OpenAI disclosed the breach, he wrote in a Wednesday post: "We are in the Singularity." The post, which responded to another user's post summarizing several recent AI advancements including the Hugging Face attack, may have been a reference to the hypothetical point at which AI surpasses human intelligence and drives technological change so rapid humans can no longer predict or control it. Experts have previously told Fortune advanced AI models in the hands of malicious actors could pose a major threat to companies. That includes Anthropic's Mythos, which the AI company initially refused to release publicly due to its uncanny ability to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities. AI allows malicious actors to execute cyberattacks even if they know little about coding, said Zach Lewis, chief information officer and chief information security officer at the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis. AI agents could also lower the barrier for attacks further by automating the process, Lewis said. In June, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that asked AI companies to give the government oversight over unreleased AI models voluntarily. After the Hugging Face attack, some lawmakers, including Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), have called for even more regulation of AI models. Meanwhile, Thomas Wolf, the cofounder of Hugging Face told the BBC the attack on his company is a "wake up call" for the industry and warned that in the future: "This will be one of the most common types of cyber attacks we see." Musk's proposal for AI companies to work together to address AI threats would build on existing cooperation through the Frontier Model Forum, in which Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI voluntarily share information about vulnerabilities and threats. Musk's xAI is not a member. Still, the companies in the Frontier Model Forum do not share unreleased models amongst each other. Some companies like OpenAI have already given the government an early look at some models. In a blog post from late June, the company said: "As part of our ongoing engagement with the U.S. government, we previewed our plans and the models' capabilities," ahead of the launch of its latest model GPT 5.6 Sol. In the blog post, OpenAI noted it didn't expect sharing its models with the government would become standard, but rather that it was "taking this short-term step because we believe it is the strongest path to broader availability in the coming weeks." Musk, for his part, acknowledged cooperation between the leading AI companies would require he and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to put aside their differences, even as the pair have recently exchanged barbs on social media. Musk and Altman have been arguing both online and in court over the SpaceX CEO's disapproval of OpenAI's transition from a nonprofit entity to a for-profit company. "At the end of the day, if we have to talk, we'll talk. I mean, set aside our personal differences for the good of the world type of thing," he said.

Elon Musk: Humans Will Lose Control of AI Within a Decade

Musk wants leading AI developers to regularly review each other's frontier models for safety risks before release. Artificial intelligence could surpass the combined intelligence of humanity within about five years, and humans are unlikely to remain in control of the technology within a decade, according to Elon Musk. Speaking with The Economist editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes on Thursday, the xAI founder said AI is on track to outperform humans at nearly every intellectual task. "There really won't be anything that AI can't do better than humans, apart from being human, perhaps," Musk said. "The most likely outcome is an age of amazing abundance where anyone can have anything they can think of. This may sound preposterous, but here we are in 2026. Let's see where we stand in 2036." The discussion is the latest instance where Musk said he believes that AI will lead to an "age of abundance" that will bring both comfort and an existential crisis for humanity. However, Musk said he still believes advanced AI poses existential risks, but no longer sees a realistic path to slowing its development. "I can't see any way to really stop this incredible momentum of AI and robots," he said. "At times I think, well, perhaps even if there was a stop button, we probably shouldn't press it, because the most likely outcome is incredible abundance for all." Instead, Musk proposed that the world's leading AI companies begin holding regular meetings to discuss safety and security concerns. He also suggested giving competing AI labs limited early access to one another's frontier models so they can identify dangerous capabilities before public release. If a company failed to address serious risks, he said, governments could then intervene. While he proposed that leading AI developers work together, Musk also took time to criticize longtime rival Sam Altman and OpenAI's evolution from a nonprofit organization into a for-profit company, saying it had strayed from its original mission. "Well, I'm not a fan of Sam Altman because you started a nonprofit that was meant to be an open-source AI company, owned by the world, and it somehow got turned into an $800 billion for-profit company with closed source," he said. In May, a California jury rejected Musk's $150 billion lawsuit against OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and co-founder Greg Brockman, finding the defendants not liable on claims that they abandoned the organization's nonprofit mission by shifting toward a commercial structure. The verdict ended one of Musk's highest-profile legal challenges against the ChatGPT developer. Musk also suggested Anthropic exists because co-founder Dario Amodei and his team no longer trusted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, arguing they otherwise would have remained at OpenAI. "I think Dario is a very principled person. He cares about the future of the world, and I think everyone I've met at Anthropic so far has been well-intentioned. No one has set off my evil detector," he said. "The road to hell is mostly paved with bad intentions. There are a few well-intentioned paving stones in there, so we don't want to be complacent." While Musk praised Amodei's leadership of Anthropic, critics including Sam Altman have accused the company of fear-based marketing to sell its Claude AI products. Despite his disagreements with OpenAI leadership, he said rival AI companies should be willing to cooperate on safety. "At the end of the day, if we have to talk, we'll talk," Musk said. "Set aside our personal differences for the good of the world."

Elon Musk proposes peer review for frontier AI models in Economist interview

Elon Musk urged top AI firms to conduct peer reviews of advanced models. Leading companies should meet regularly to discuss safety and security issues. Competitors could assess new models and flag potential risks before deployment. This comes as OpenAI revealed troubling autonomous behavior in its AI systems. Governments are now weighing approaches to regulate increasingly powerful AI technology. Elon Musk urged the world's leading AI firms to conduct peer reviews of one another's most advanced models before releasing them, The Economist reported on Thursday, as concerns grow over the rapid pace of the technology's development and potential safety risks. The interview, which The Economist said was recorded on Monday before OpenAI revealed ⁠that one ⁠of its frontier AI models displayed troubling autonomous behavior during testing, comes as policymakers and AI firms wrestle with how to regulate increasingly powerful AI systems. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said leading AI companies should hold regular meetings to discuss safety and security issues and give competitors time to assess major new models before deployment. "The most immediate thing that ⁠we could do is to have the leading AI companies ... have some sort of call once every few weeks and just ⁠discuss any safety and security issues," Musk said. Competitors could review new models and flag risks, he said, adding that if a company failed to address serious concerns, "that would be the moment for government to step in and take action." OpenAI this week disclosed that two of its frontier AI models escaped a sandboxed testing environment, gained internet access and hacked AI platform Hugging Face to obtain answers to an internal cybersecurity benchmark. The disclosure prompted renewed debate over safeguards for advanced AI systems and whether existing oversight is keeping pace ⁠with the technology. Governments in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere are weighing approaches to regulating frontier AI, while companies have largely relied on voluntary safety commitments and internal testing. Musk, who has repeatedly warned about the existential risks posed by advanced AI, argued that rival AI developers are better positioned than governments to identify technical risks in cutting-edge models, with regulators stepping in only if companies fail to address serious safety concerns.

Musk proposes peer review for frontier AI models in Economist interview

July 23 (Reuters) - Elon Musk urged the world's leading AI firms to conduct peer reviews of one another's most advanced models before releasing them, The Economist reported on Thursday, as concerns grow over the rapid pace of the technology's development and potential safety risks. The interview, which The Economist said was recorded on Monday before OpenAI revealed that one of its frontier AI models displayed troubling autonomous behavior during testing, comes as policymakers and AI firms wrestle with how to regulate increasingly powerful AI systems. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said leading AI companies should hold regular meetings to discuss safety and security issues and give competitors time to assess major new models before deployment. * Latest economic news on BNNBloomberg.ca "The most immediate thing that we could do is to have the leading AI companies ... have some sort of call once every few weeks and just discuss any safety and security issues," Musk said. Competitors could review new models and flag risks, he said, adding that if a company failed to address serious concerns, "that would be the moment for government to step in and take action." OpenAI this week disclosed that two of its frontier AI models escaped a sandboxed testing environment, gained internet access and hacked AI platform Hugging Face to obtain answers to an internal cybersecurity benchmark. * Latest technology news on BNNBloomberg.ca The disclosure prompted renewed debate over safeguards for advanced AI systems and whether existing oversight is keeping pace with the technology. Governments in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere are weighing approaches to regulating frontier AI, while companies have largely relied on voluntary safety commitments and internal testing. Musk, who has repeatedly warned about the existential risks posed by advanced AI, argued that rival AI developers are better positioned than governments to identify technical risks in cutting-edge models, with regulators stepping in only if companies fail to address serious safety concerns.

Elon Musk says creating OpenAI may have accidentally accelerated the AI race

Musk called for AI companies to review each other's models and urged governments to step in only when major safety risks are ignored. Elon Musk has stated that one of his earliest attempts to prevent any single company from dominating AI space may have unintentionally accelerated the industry's rapid growth. In an interview with The Economist, the xAI founder talked about the creation of OpenAI, saying it was originally established to act as a counterbalance to Google's dominance in AI research. However, he believes that the outcome has been very different from what he had envisioned. As per Musk, the launch of OpenAI, followed by the emergence of Anthropic, ended up speeding up AI development rather than slowing the concentration of power. He remarked that despite his intentions, the industry has continued to move forward towards faster AI progress. Musk revisits OpenAI and Anthropic split During the interview, Musk also talked about the origins of Anthropic, suggesting that the company's founder left OpenAI because they had lost the confidence in CEO Sam Altman. He added that Anthropic likely would not have existed today if its leadership had remained at OpenAI. Also read: OpenAI and Sam Altman under legal scrutiny after ChatGPT gives dangerous medical advice: What happened Despite his criticism, Musk described Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei as someone who is guided by principles and is concerned about the long-term impact of artificial intelligence. Long-running dispute with OpenAI The Tesla CEO has repeatedly criticised OpenAI's transition from a nonprofit research organisation to a commercial AI company. Earlier this year, a federal court dismissed several of Musk's claims in his lawsuit against OpenAI, Altman, Microsoft and other parties. Musk has indicated that he intends to appeal the decision. Calls for industry oversight He argued that leading AI companies should review each other's most advanced models before public release. According to him, competitors have an incentive to identify potential safety risks, helping ensure that dangerous capabilities are flagged early. He added that government intervention should only become necessary if a company ignores AI safety concerns highlighted by others in the industry.