OpenAI is working together with researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory to enhance artificial intelligence safety.
Takeaway Points
- OpenAI partners with the Los Alamos National Laboratory to enhance AI safety.
- This partnership supports the recent White House Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence.
- The two companies are working together on an evaluation study to assess how frontier models like GPT-4o can help humans perform tasks in a physical laboratory setting through multimodal capabilities like vision and voice.
OpenAI partners with Los Alamos National Laboratory.
OpenAI announced on Wednesday, in a press release, its partnership with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), one of the United States’ leading national laboratories, to work together to understand how artificial intelligence can be used safely by scientists in laboratory settings to advance bioscientific research.
This partnership supports the recent White House Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, where the U.S. Department of Energy’s national labs were assigned to help evaluate the capabilities of frontier AI models, including biological capabilities.
Mira Murati, OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer, said that they are happy to announce their partnership with LANL.
“As a private company dedicated to serving the public interest, we’re thrilled to announce a first-of-its-kind partnership with Los Alamos National Laboratory to study bioscience capabilities. This partnership marks a natural progression in our mission, advancing scientific research, while also understanding and mitigating risks,” Mira said.
Erick LeBrun, research scientist at Los Alamos, commented, “The potential upside to growing AI capabilities is endless. However, measuring and understanding any potential dangers or misuse of advanced AI related to biological threats remain largely unexplored. This work with OpenAI is an important step towards establishing a framework for evaluating current and future models, ensuring the responsible development and deployment of AI technologies.”
The two companies are working together on an evaluation study to assess how frontier models like GPT-4o can help humans perform tasks in a physical laboratory setting through multimodal capabilities like vision and voice.
According to the ChatGPT maker, the upcoming evaluation with Los Alamos will be the first experiment to test multimodal frontier models in a lab setting by assessing the abilities of both experts and novices to perform and troubleshoot a safe protocol consisting of standard laboratory experimental tasks.
Raymond Newell Receives an Award
On July 2, 2024, LANL said that one of their scientists, Raymond Newell, was named Battelle’s Inventor of the Year for Los Alamos. The annual award recognizes inventors from Battelle and from Battelle-managed laboratories, including Brookhaven National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Michael Rabin, quantum group leader at Los Alamos, explained in a comment some of the work that Ray has done, saying he has helped to develop effective solutions.
“Ray’s work across quantum technologies, including on the Quantum Random Number Generator, has set a high standard for innovation and opened up new areas around using quantum technology for information protection and more. In an area of critical importance for national security and our economy, Ray has developed effective solutions, demonstrating ingenuity, creativity, and persistence.” Michael said.
Newell was honored in May at the Celebration of Solvers ceremony at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, the report said.
