Latest news with #RedTeaming
Mint
4 days ago
- Mint
Dodgy aides: What can we do about AI models that defy humans?
Artificial intelligence (AI) going rogue has been the stuff of dystopic science fiction. Could fiction be giving way to fact, with several AI models reportedly disobeying explicit instructions to shut down when a third-party tester asked them to? On a recent test done by Palisade Research, the most glaring refusenik belonged to OpenAI, with some AI models of Google and Anthropic also showing a tendency to evade shutdown. It is not yet time to rewatch Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) for a vivid nightmare scenario of malign AI running amok, but it would be a good idea to adopt caution while integrating AI bots and modules into Enterprise Resource Planning systems. If something goes wrong, the system would likely need a reboot; and if its AI bits scuttle a shutdown, a digital hostage crisis could arise. Also Read: Rahul Matthan: Brace for a wave of AI-enabled criminal enterprise That's what users of AI have to worry about. Developers and regulators of AI, meanwhile, must accelerate efforts to address the challenges thrown open by the rise of AI that can defy human orders. Silicon Valley is used to privileging speed-to-market over full system integrity and safety. This urge is baked into the business model of multiple startups in pursuit of similar wonders, with venture capital breathing down executive necks to play the pioneer in a potentially winner-takes-all setting. Investors often need their hot ventures to prove their mettle double-quick so that they can either cash out or stem losses before moving on to other bets. 'Move fast and break things' is fine as a motto while developing apps to share videos, compare pet pranks or disrupt our online lives in other small ways. Also Read: When AI gets a manager, you know the game has changed But when it comes to AI, which is rapidly being given agency, nobody can afford to be cavalier about what may end up broken. If one thing snaps, multiple breakdowns could follow. AI is given to hallucination and training input biases. It can also learn the wrong thing if it is fed carelessly crafted synthetic data, for example, like broad estimates with low fidelity to actual numbers. This problem goes by the bland title of 'misalignment.' Today, what risks going askew is the course taken by AI from the path planned for AI development. Among the techniques used to keep alignment in check, there is one whose name harks back to war games of the Cold War era: Red Teaming. The Red Team represented the bad guys, of course, and the aim was to get into the head of the enemy and anticipate its conduct. Applied to AI, it would entail provoking it to expose its follies. If the AI models that dodged orders to shut down had been Red Teamed properly while under development, developers need to come up with better ways to exorcise their software of potential demons. If the makers of these tools fail to keep AI aligned with desirable outcomes, then regulation would be the only security we have against a big threat in the making. Also Read: Biases aren't useless: Let's cut AI some slack on these The EU's regulatory approach to AI invites criticism for being too stiff for innovation to thrive, but it is spot-on in its demand for safe, transparent, traceable, eco-friendly and non-discriminatory AI. Human oversight of AI systems, as the EU requires, should be universally adopted even if it slows down AI evolution. We must minimize risks by specifying limits and insisting on transparency. In all AI labs, developers and whistleblowers alike should know what lines must not be crossed. Rules are rarely perfect at the outset, but we all have a stake in this. Let's ensure that AI is here to serve and not subvert human welfare.
USA Today
05-02-2025
- General
- USA Today
Friends remember Brian Ellis, DC plane crash passenger, as 'one of the best'
Friends remember Brian Ellis, DC plane crash passenger, as 'one of the best' Brian Ellis and his teammates won the Georgia state high school football championship in 1987. By the fall of his senior year in 1988, he was their starting quarterback. 'It was an early sign of his leadership and commitment to team values,' stated a tribute to him this week by the public school district in his hometown in Clayton County, Georgia. Those virtues would follow him through a football career at the U.S. Naval Academy, almost 22 years as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, and in the enduring friendships he maintained until he perished with 66 others in the mid-air collision over Washington, D.C. last week. Ellis, 53, served as a helicopter pilot and instructor for 12 years of his Marine career, including stints overseas while deployed. For his friends, the irony of his death in a collision with an Army helicopter was tough to handle. Ellis left his hometown of Morrow, Georgia in 1989 after graduating high school to attend the traditional Plebe Summer at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he had been recruited to play football. During those early weeks, he quickly fell in with three classmates, who became 'the four musketeers,' said Chad Chatlos, another member of the quartet. It would become a lifelong friendship for Ellis, Chatlos, Che' Bolden and Mark McGinnis. They played four years of Navy football and did a lot of summer training cruises together, he said. The friends headed into the Marine Basic School at Quantico together in 1994, and Chatlos said that Ellis and Bolden roomed together during flight school. 'From 1989 to 2000, we were pretty much together all the time," he said. "Over the years, we always kept in touch.' 'He was a great friend. He'd do anything for you,' Chatlos said. 'All of his friends say he was one of the best.' Even after everybody started getting married, they 'stayed fast friends,' often vacationing together on beaches in the Florida Panhandle, where Ellis served for years as a flight instructor in Pensacola. Chatlos said their latest events had been retirements. Ellis was a godfather to children in the McGinnis and Bolden families. After Bolden posted the news about his friend on LinkedIn this week, the comments section quickly filled with people who fondly remembered Ellis as a classmate, teammate, fellow Marine, leader, great dad and lacrosse coach. In the later years of his Marine Corps career, Ellis managed public remarks and messaging for the Commandant of the Marine Corps, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also led a team charged with implementing Red Teaming, a planning process where a small group of experts provide critical thought and alternative perspectives to identify risks and problem solving, according to the Marine Corps. Ellis retired as a Lt. Colonel in 2015 and went to work the next month for Deloitte, an international professional services network, for which he was traveling on business last week. He is survived by his wife Amy and two sons: Jack, who recently graduated college, and Luke, a senior at Purdue University, as well as his parents and siblings.
