This is the interim publication of the first International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI - a diverse group of 75 artificial intelligence (AI) experts contributed to this report, including an international Expert Advisory Panel nominated by 30 countries, the European Union (EU), and the United Nations (UN).

At a time of unprecedented progress in AI development, this first publication restricts its focus to a type of AI that has advanced particularly rapidly in recent years: General-purpose AI, or AI that can perform a wide variety of tasks. Amid rapid advancements, research on general-purpose AI is currently in a time of scientific discovery and is not yet settled science.

People around the world will only be able to enjoy general-purpose AI’s many potential benefits safely if its risks are appropriately managed. This report focuses on identifying these risks and evaluating technical methods for assessing and mitigating them. It does not aim to comprehensively assess all possible societal impacts of general-purpose AI, including its many potential benefits.

Key messages:

• If properly governed, general-purpose AI can be applied to advance the public interest, potentially leading to enhanced wellbeing, more prosperity, and new scientific discoveries. However, malfunctioning or maliciously used general-purpose AI can also cause harm, for instance through biased decisions in high-stakes settings or through scams, fake media, or privacy violations.
• As general-purpose AI capabilities continue to advance, risks such as large-scale labour market impacts, AI-enabled hacking or biological attacks, and society losing control over general-purpose AI could emerge, although the likelihood of these scenarios is debated among researchers. Different views on these risks often stem from differing expectations about the steps society will take to limit them, the effectiveness of those steps, and how rapidly general-purpose AI capabilities will be advanced.
• There is considerable uncertainty about the rate of future progress in general-purpose AI capabilities. Some experts think a slowdown of progress is by far most likely, while other experts think that extremely rapid progress is possible or likely.
• There are various technical methods to assess and reduce risks from general-purpose AI that developers can employ and regulators can require, but they all have limitations. For example, current techniques for explaining why general-purpose AI models produce any given output are severely limited.
• There are various technical methods to assess and reduce risks from general-purpose AI that developers can employ and regulators can require, but they all have limitations. For example, current techniques for explaining why general-purpose AI models produce any given output are severely limited.