Are artificial intelligence companies keeping humanity safe from AI\u2019s potential harms? Don\u2019t bet on it, a new report card says.<\/p>\n
As AI plays an increasingly larger role in the way humans interact with technology, the potential harms are becoming more clear \u2014 people using AI-powered chatbots for counseling and then dying by suicide<\/a>, or using AI for cyberattacks<\/a>. There are also future risks \u2014 AI being used to make weapons or overthrow governments.<\/p>\n Yet there are not enough incentives for AI firms to prioritize keeping humanity safe, and that\u2019s reflected in an AI Safety Index<\/a> published Wednesday by Silicon Valley-based nonprofit Future of Life Institute that aims to steer AI into a safer direction and limit the existential risks to humanity. <\/p>\n \u201cThey are the only industry in the U.S. making powerful technology that\u2019s completely unregulated, so that puts them in a race to the bottom against each other where they just don\u2019t have the incentives to prioritize safety,\u201d said the institute\u2019s president and MIT professor Max Tegmark in an interview.<\/p>\n The highest overall grades given were only a C+, given to two San Francisco AI companies: OpenAI, which produces ChatGPT, and Anthropic, known for its AI chatbot model Claude. Google\u2019s AI division, Google DeepMind, was given a C.<\/p>\n Ranking even lower were Facebook\u2019s Menlo Park-based parent company, Meta, and Elon Musk\u2019s Palo Alto-based company, xAI, which were given a D. Chinese firms Z.ai and DeepSeek also earned a D. The lowest grade was given to Alibaba Cloud, which got a D-. <\/p>\n The companies\u2019 overall grades were based on 35 indicators in six categories, including existential safety, risk assessment and information sharing. The index collected evidence based on publicly available materials and responses from the companies through a survey. The scoring was done by eight artificial intelligence experts, a group that included academics and heads of AI-related organizations. <\/p>\n All the companies in the index ranked below average in the category of existential safety, which factors in internal monitoring and control interventions and existential safety strategy.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile companies accelerate their AGI and superintelligence ambitions, none has demonstrated a credible plan for preventing catastrophic misuse or loss of control,\u201d according to the institute\u2019s AI Safety Index report, using the acronym for artificial general intelligence. <\/p>\n Both Google DeepMind and OpenAI said they are invested in safety efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cSafety is core to how we build and deploy AI,\u201d OpenAI said in a statement. \u201cWe invest heavily in frontier safety research, build strong safeguards into our systems, and rigorously test our models, both internally and with independent experts. We share our safety frameworks, evaluations, and research to help advance industry standards, and we continuously strengthen our protections to prepare for future capabilities.\u201d <\/p>\n Google DeepMind in a statement said it takes \u201ca rigorous, science-led approach to AI safety.\u201d <\/p>\n