Publications

Filling gaps in trustworthy development of AI

Incident sharing, auditing, and other concrete mechanisms could help verify the trustworthiness of actors
Shahar Avin, Haydn Belfield, Miles Brundage, Gretchen Krueger, Jasmine Wang, Adrian Weller, Markus Anderljung, Igor Krawczuk, David Krueger, Jonathan Lebensbold, Tegan Maharaj, Noa Zilberman
Preprint PDF DOI Science Gizmodo

An agent-based model clarifies the importance of functional and developmental integration in shaping brain evolution

Computer simulation explores brain size evolution.
Shahar Avin, Adrian Currie, Stephen H Montgomery
Preprint PDF Code

Towards Trustworthy AI Development: Mechanisms for Supporting Verifiable Claims

Ten mechanisms for supporting the verification of claims made by developers of AI systems.
Miles Brundage, Shahar Avin, Jasmine Wang, Haydn Belfield, Gretchen Krueger, Gillian Hadfield, Heidy Khlaaf, Jingying Yang, Helen Toner, Ruth Fong, Tegan Maharaj, Pang Wei Koh, Sara Hooker, Jade Leung, Andrew Trask, Emma Bluemke, Jonathan Lebensbold, Cullen O'Keefe, Mark Koren, Théo Ryffel, JB Rubinovitz, Tamay Besiroglu, Federica Carugati, Jack Clark, Peter Eckersley, Sarah de Haas, Maritza Johnson, Ben Laurie, Alex Ingerman, Igor Krawczuk, Amanda Askell, Rosario Cammarota, Andrew Lohn, David Krueger, Charlotte Stix, Peter Henderson, Logan Graham, Carina Prunkl, Bianca Martin, Elizabeth Seger, Noa Zilberman, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, Frens Kroeger, Girish Sastry, Rebecca Kagan, Adrian Weller, Brian Tse, Elizabeth Barnes, Allan Dafoe, Paul Scharre, Ariel Herbert-Voss, Martijn Rasser, Shagun Sodhani, Carrick Flynn, Thomas Krendl Gilbert, Lisa Dyer, Saif Khan, Yoshua Bengio, Markus Anderljung
PDF VentureBeat Financial Times

Exploring AI Futures Through Role Play

Exploration of AI futures and impacts through participatory role-play simulation.
Shahar Avin, Ross Gruetzemacher, James Fox
PDF DOI

Autonomy and machine learning at the interface of nuclear weapons, computers and people

Describes new threats posed by the introduction of ML at the interfaces between people and nuclear weapons systems (and related systems), and proposes policy responses.
Shahar Avin, SM Amadae
PDF DOI SIPRI complete volume

Method Pluralism, Method Mismatch & Method Bias

Modelling different approaches to evidence gathering.
Adrian Currie, Shahar Avin
Preprint Code

Surveying Safety-relevant AI Characteristics

Survey of known and potential safety-relevant AI characteristics, covering internal characteristics, system-environment effects, and training.
Jose Hernandez-Orallo, Fernando Martínez-Plumed, Shahar Avin, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh
PDF

Exploring artificial intelligence futures

Reviews different methods to explore AI futures, including fiction, single-discipline studies, several multidisciplinary approches, and interactive methods.
Shahar Avin
PDF

Mavericks and Lotteries

Summarises academic arguments for funding science by lottery, and compares these to real implementations of the policy.
Shahar Avin
PDF

Beyond Brain Size: Uncovering the Neural Correlates of Behavioral and Cognitive Specialization

Limits of brain size measures in the study of brain-behavior across species, and suggestions for alternative research approaches.
Corina J Logan, Shahar Avin, Neeltje Boogert, Andrew Buskell, Fiona R Cross, Adrian Currie, Sarah Jelbert, Dieter Lukas, Rafael Mares, Ana F Navarrete, Shuichi Shigeno, Stephen H Montgomery
Preprint PDF

Policy Considerations for Random Allocation of Research Funds

Expanding on the policy implications of the model results in my PhD thesis.
Shahar Avin
PDF Project

Classifying global catastrophic risks

Classifying GCRs based on critical system breached, global spread mechanism, and human prevention and mitigation failure.
Shahar Avin, Bonnie C Wintle, Julius Weitzdörfer, Seán S Ó hÉigeartaigh, William J Sutherland, Martin J Rees
PDF Slides Video

The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation

Risks and responses to near-term malicious use of AI/ML.
Miles Brundage, Shahar Avin, Jack Clark, Helen Toner, Peter Eckersley, Ben Garfinkel, Allan Dafoe, Paul Scharre, Thomas Zeitzoff, Bobby Filar, Hyrum Anderson, Heather Roff, Gregory C Allen, Jacob Steinhardt, Carrick Flynn, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, Simon Beard, Haydn Belfield, Sebastian Farquhar, Clare Lyle, Rebecca Crootof, Owain Evans, Michael Page, Joanna Bryson, Roman Yampolskiy, Dario Amodei
Preprint PDF Video BBC New York Times Wired Opinion Wired The Verge CyberLaw podcast SecurityNow World Economic Forum People's Daily כלכליסט Deutsche Welle L'actualité

Centralized funding and epistemic exploration

Extension of the model developed in my PhD thesis.
Shahar Avin
Preprint PDF Code Project

Science funding is a gamble so let’s give out money by lottery

Popular version of the argument made in my PhD thesis.
Shahar Avin
Project Aeon

Funding science by lottery

Early quick overview of the argument made in my PhD thesis.
Shahar Avin
Preprint PDF Project

Breaking the grant cycle: On the rational allocation of public resources to scientific research projects

Agent-based simulations of hypothetical research communities show random allocation can outperform selection by potential merit under certain conditions.
Shahar Avin
PDF Project Poster

Why We Still Need Grant Peer Review

A comment on “From funding agencies to scientific agency” by Bollen et al.
Shahar Avin
Preprint PDF