OpenAI, Anthropic held talks to ‘stress-test’ each other’s AI models: report

Dario Amodei’s Anthropic and Sam Altman’s OpenAI were in talks earlier this year on a deal to stress-test each other’s AI models for potential safety flaws, according to a report.

They began negotiations on a “legally binding deal” before high-profile incidents such as OpenAI’s accidental hack of rival firm Hugging Face occurred, The Information reported Monday, citing a person with direct knowledge of the talks.

Lawyers for the AI giants were drawing up the terms of the deal, which would have involved each company subjecting the other’s new models to a battery of tests aimed at finding flaws or other “hidden dangers,” the report said.

However, it’s unclear whether the agreement was ever finalized.

The idea of implementing some form of peer review among leading AI labs has gained steam in recent days. Elon Musk, who founded Grok-maker xAI, argued that top US labs and their Chinese counterparts should test each other’s models during an appearance at the All-In Summit in Los Angeles last week.

The AI safety debate exploded into the mainstream earlier this month when Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old former employee of Anthropic and OpenAI, said leading AI companies are “gambling with our lives” by speeding ahead of development without proper guardrails in place.