[Paper Review] International Institutions for Advanced AI

L. Lawrence Ho, Joslyn Barnhart+9 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Jul 10, 2023

Ethics and Social Impacts of AISocial Sciences20 citations

TL;DR

The paper proposes four international governance models—Commission on Frontier AI, Advanced AI Governance Organization, Frontier AI Collaborative, and AI Safety Project—and analyzes their potential roles, synergies, and viability for managing risks and distributing benefits of advanced AI.

ABSTRACT

International institutions may have an important role to play in ensuring advanced AI systems benefit humanity. International collaborations can unlock AI's ability to further sustainable development, and coordination of regulatory efforts can reduce obstacles to innovation and the spread of benefits. Conversely, the potential dangerous capabilities of powerful and general-purpose AI systems create global externalities in their development and deployment, and international efforts to further responsible AI practices could help manage the risks they pose. This paper identifies a set of governance functions that could be performed at an international level to address these challenges, ranging from supporting access to frontier AI systems to setting international safety standards. It groups these functions into four institutional models that exhibit internal synergies and have precedents in existing organizations: 1) a Commission on Frontier AI that facilitates expert consensus on opportunities and risks from advanced AI, 2) an Advanced AI Governance Organization that sets international standards to manage global threats from advanced models, supports their implementation, and possibly monitors compliance with a future governance regime, 3) a Frontier AI Collaborative that promotes access to cutting-edge AI, and 4) an AI Safety Project that brings together leading researchers and engineers to further AI safety research. We explore the utility of these models and identify open questions about their viability.

Motivation & Objective

• Argue for international governance to harness AI benefits and mitigate global risks.
• Map governance functions to international institutions and identify where they could be implemented.
• Propose four institutional models and analyze their strengths, synergies, and limitations.
• Highlight open questions and practical considerations for future governance of frontier AI.

Proposed method

• Taxonomic framing of governance functions into science/tech development and rulemaking/enforcement.
• Conceptual mapping of each function to four idealized institutional models.
• Comparative analysis of benefits, challenges, and viability for each model.
• Reference to existing international efforts (OECD, GPAI, ITU, ISO/IEC) to ground proposals.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What international governance functions are needed to address opportunities and risks from advanced AI?
• RQ2 Which institutional configurations can effectively perform these functions while promoting global access and safety?
• RQ3 What are the main challenges and viability concerns for each proposed model (consensus, standards, access, safety research)?
• RQ4 How might existing institutions (OECD, GPAI, ITU, ISO/IEC) inform or be complemented by new international structures?
• RQ5 What open questions remain about participation incentives, monitoring, and adaptability to rapid AI progress?

Key findings

• Four institutional models can perform distinct but synergistic governance roles for frontier AI.
• A Commission on Frontier AI can help build expert consensus and inform policy.
• An Advanced AI Governance Organization can set standards, support implementation, and monitor compliance.
• A Frontier AI Collaborative can promote international access and distribute benefits to underserved regions.
• An AI Safety Project can coordinate safety research and resource sharing among leading researchers.