
當(dāng)今最先進(jìn)的人工智能模型在諸多領(lǐng)域頗具價(jià)值——編寫(xiě)軟件代碼,、開(kāi)展研究,、總結(jié)復(fù)雜文檔、撰寫(xiě)商業(yè)信函,、編輯內(nèi)容,、生成圖像與音樂(lè)、模擬人機(jī)交互等,,應(yīng)用場(chǎng)景不勝枚舉,。然而,,“相對(duì)”一詞實(shí)為關(guān)鍵。任何使用過(guò)這些模型的人很快會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn),,它們?nèi)匀蝗菀壮鲥e(cuò)且不穩(wěn)定,,令人沮喪。那么,,為何有人會(huì)認(rèn)為這些系統(tǒng)能用于運(yùn)行關(guān)鍵基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施,,如電網(wǎng)、空中交通管制,、通信網(wǎng)絡(luò)或交通系統(tǒng),?
然而,這正是英國(guó)高級(jí)研究與發(fā)明局(以下簡(jiǎn)稱ARIA)所資助項(xiàng)目期望達(dá)成的目標(biāo),。ARIA的定位在一定程度上與美國(guó)國(guó)防部高級(jí)研究計(jì)劃局(DARPA)類(lèi)似,,旨在為具備潛在政府或戰(zhàn)略應(yīng)用價(jià)值的“登月計(jì)劃”式研究提供政府資金支持。這項(xiàng)耗資5900萬(wàn)英鎊(約合8000萬(wàn)美元)的ARIA項(xiàng)目名為“安全保障人工智能項(xiàng)目”(The Safeguarded AI Program),,旨在探索將人工智能“世界模型”與數(shù)學(xué)證明相結(jié)合的方法,,以確保系統(tǒng)輸出的有效性。
領(lǐng)導(dǎo)ARIA項(xiàng)目的機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)研究員大衛(wèi)·達(dá)爾林普爾(David Dalrymple)向我透露,,該項(xiàng)目的核心思路是利用先進(jìn)人工智能模型構(gòu)建一座“生產(chǎn)工廠”,為關(guān)鍵基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施批量生成特定領(lǐng)域的控制算法,。這些算法將通過(guò)數(shù)學(xué)測(cè)試,,以確保其符合所需的性能規(guī)范。若控制算法通過(guò)測(cè)試,,便會(huì)部署這些控制器(而非開(kāi)發(fā)它們的前沿人工智能模型)以更高效地運(yùn)行關(guān)鍵基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施,。
達(dá)爾林普爾(其社交媒體賬號(hào)名為Davidad)以英國(guó)電網(wǎng)為例解釋道:目前電網(wǎng)運(yùn)營(yíng)商承認(rèn),若能更有效地平衡電網(wǎng)供需,,每年可節(jié)省30億英鎊(約合40億美元)——這筆資金目前主要用于維持過(guò)剩發(fā)電能力處于運(yùn)行狀態(tài),,以避免突發(fā)停電。更優(yōu)的控制算法可降低此類(lèi)成本,。
除能源領(lǐng)域外,,ARIA還在探索該技術(shù)在供應(yīng)鏈物流、生物制藥,、自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē),、臨床試驗(yàn)設(shè)計(jì)和電動(dòng)汽車(chē)電池管理等領(lǐng)域的應(yīng)用。
人工智能開(kāi)發(fā)新控制算法
達(dá)爾林普爾表示,,前沿人工智能模型或已發(fā)展到可自動(dòng)開(kāi)展算法研發(fā)的程度,。他告訴我:“我們的設(shè)想是,利用這一能力轉(zhuǎn)向狹義人工智能研發(fā),?!豹M義人工智能通常指專(zhuān)為執(zhí)行某一特定,、狹義任務(wù)而設(shè)計(jì)的人工智能系統(tǒng),其表現(xiàn)能超越人類(lèi),,并非具備執(zhí)行多種任務(wù)能力的人工智能系統(tǒng),。
即便針對(duì)這些狹義人工智能系統(tǒng),挑戰(zhàn)也在于如何通過(guò)數(shù)學(xué)證明來(lái)確保其輸出結(jié)果始終契合所需的技術(shù)規(guī)范,。存在一個(gè)名為“形式驗(yàn)證”的完整領(lǐng)域,,該領(lǐng)域涉及運(yùn)用數(shù)學(xué)方法證明軟件在給定條件下始終能輸出有效結(jié)果,但眾所周知,,將其應(yīng)用于基于神經(jīng)網(wǎng)絡(luò)的人工智能系統(tǒng)難度極大,。達(dá)爾林普爾表示:“即便是對(duì)狹義人工智能系統(tǒng)進(jìn)行驗(yàn)證,也需耗費(fèi)大量認(rèn)知精力,。因此從歷史情況看,,除非是民航自動(dòng)駕駛儀或核電站控制這類(lèi)真正的專(zhuān)業(yè)應(yīng)用場(chǎng)景,否則開(kāi)展此類(lèi)驗(yàn)證工作并不劃算,?!?/p>
這類(lèi)經(jīng)過(guò)形式驗(yàn)證的軟件不會(huì)因故障而產(chǎn)生錯(cuò)誤輸出,不過(guò)有時(shí)會(huì)因遇到超出設(shè)計(jì)規(guī)格的情形而出現(xiàn)故障——比如,,電網(wǎng)的負(fù)載平衡算法可能無(wú)法應(yīng)對(duì)極端太陽(yáng)風(fēng)暴致使所有電網(wǎng)變壓器同時(shí)短路的情況,。但即便如此,軟件通常會(huì)被設(shè)計(jì)成“故障安全”模式,,切換至手動(dòng)控制,。
ARIA希望證明,前沿人工智能模型不僅能先用于開(kāi)發(fā)狹義人工智能控制器,,還能承擔(dān)對(duì)其進(jìn)行繁重的形式驗(yàn)證工作,。
但是,人工智能模型會(huì)在驗(yàn)證測(cè)試中作弊嗎,?
然而,,這又引發(fā)了新挑戰(zhàn)。越來(lái)越多的證據(jù)表明,,前沿人工智能模型極為擅長(zhǎng)“獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)黑客”——本質(zhì)上是通過(guò)作弊手段來(lái)達(dá)成目標(biāo)——也擅長(zhǎng)向用戶隱瞞自身的真實(shí)操作,。非營(yíng)利性人工智能安全組織METR(模型評(píng)估與威脅研究的簡(jiǎn)稱)在最近發(fā)布的一篇博客中,列舉了OpenAI的o3模型在各類(lèi)任務(wù)中試圖作弊的種種方式,。
ARIA表示,,其亦致力于探尋解決這一問(wèn)題的路徑。達(dá)爾林普爾表示:“前沿模型需提交一份證明證書(shū),,該證書(shū)將使用我們?cè)陧?xiàng)目另一模塊中定義的形式化語(yǔ)言撰寫(xiě),。”這種“新證明語(yǔ)言有望讓前沿模型輕松生成內(nèi)容,,同時(shí)也能讓經(jīng)人工審核的確定性算法便于驗(yàn)證,?!盇RIA已為該形式驗(yàn)證流程的研究提供資金支持。
旨在實(shí)現(xiàn)這一目標(biāo)的模型已嶄露頭角,。谷歌DeepMind近期研發(fā)出一款名為AlphaEvolve的人工智能模型,,其訓(xùn)練目標(biāo)聚焦于為數(shù)據(jù)中心管理、新型計(jì)算機(jī)芯片設(shè)計(jì)等場(chǎng)景搜索新算法,,甚至能優(yōu)化前沿人工智能模型的訓(xùn)練方式,。谷歌DeepMind還開(kāi)發(fā)了一個(gè)名為AlphaProof的系統(tǒng),該系統(tǒng)經(jīng)訓(xùn)練能開(kāi)發(fā)數(shù)學(xué)證明,,并能以名為L(zhǎng)ean的編程語(yǔ)言編寫(xiě)證明,,若證明答案有誤,該系統(tǒng)將無(wú)法運(yùn)行,。
ARIA目前正面向各團(tuán)隊(duì)征集運(yùn)營(yíng)核心“人工智能生產(chǎn)工廠”的申請(qǐng),,最終勝出者將獲得1800萬(wàn)英鎊資助,結(jié)果將于10月1日公布,。該工廠的選址尚未敲定,,計(jì)劃于2026年1月前投入運(yùn)營(yíng)。ARIA要求申請(qǐng)者為該工廠設(shè)計(jì)新法律實(shí)體和治理結(jié)構(gòu),。達(dá)爾林普爾表示,,ARIA不希望由現(xiàn)有大學(xué)或私營(yíng)企業(yè)來(lái)運(yùn)營(yíng)該工廠,更傾向于以非營(yíng)利組織形式成立的新機(jī)構(gòu),,該機(jī)構(gòu)將在能源,、制藥和醫(yī)療等領(lǐng)域與私營(yíng)實(shí)體合作開(kāi)發(fā)特定控制器算法。他還提到,,除ARIA提供的初始資助外,,該生產(chǎn)工廠可通過(guò)向行業(yè)收取特定領(lǐng)域算法的開(kāi)發(fā)費(fèi)用來(lái)實(shí)現(xiàn)資金自供給,。
目前尚不清楚該項(xiàng)目是否可行,。正如美國(guó)國(guó)防部高級(jí)研究計(jì)劃局的項(xiàng)目那樣,每個(gè)變革性項(xiàng)目背后都伴隨著更多失敗案例,。但ARIA此次的大膽嘗試,,看起來(lái)值得持續(xù)關(guān)注。(財(cái)富中文網(wǎng))
譯者:中慧言-王芳
當(dāng)今最先進(jìn)的人工智能模型在諸多領(lǐng)域頗具價(jià)值——編寫(xiě)軟件代碼,、開(kāi)展研究,、總結(jié)復(fù)雜文檔、撰寫(xiě)商業(yè)信函,、編輯內(nèi)容,、生成圖像與音樂(lè)、模擬人機(jī)交互等,,應(yīng)用場(chǎng)景不勝枚舉,。然而,,“相對(duì)”一詞實(shí)為關(guān)鍵。任何使用過(guò)這些模型的人很快會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn),,它們?nèi)匀蝗菀壮鲥e(cuò)且不穩(wěn)定,,令人沮喪。那么,,為何有人會(huì)認(rèn)為這些系統(tǒng)能用于運(yùn)行關(guān)鍵基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施,,如電網(wǎng)、空中交通管制,、通信網(wǎng)絡(luò)或交通系統(tǒng),?
然而,這正是英國(guó)高級(jí)研究與發(fā)明局(以下簡(jiǎn)稱ARIA)所資助項(xiàng)目期望達(dá)成的目標(biāo),。ARIA的定位在一定程度上與美國(guó)國(guó)防部高級(jí)研究計(jì)劃局(DARPA)類(lèi)似,,旨在為具備潛在政府或戰(zhàn)略應(yīng)用價(jià)值的“登月計(jì)劃”式研究提供政府資金支持。這項(xiàng)耗資5900萬(wàn)英鎊(約合8000萬(wàn)美元)的ARIA項(xiàng)目名為“安全保障人工智能項(xiàng)目”(The Safeguarded AI Program),,旨在探索將人工智能“世界模型”與數(shù)學(xué)證明相結(jié)合的方法,,以確保系統(tǒng)輸出的有效性。
領(lǐng)導(dǎo)ARIA項(xiàng)目的機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)研究員大衛(wèi)·達(dá)爾林普爾(David Dalrymple)向我透露,,該項(xiàng)目的核心思路是利用先進(jìn)人工智能模型構(gòu)建一座“生產(chǎn)工廠”,,為關(guān)鍵基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施批量生成特定領(lǐng)域的控制算法。這些算法將通過(guò)數(shù)學(xué)測(cè)試,,以確保其符合所需的性能規(guī)范,。若控制算法通過(guò)測(cè)試,便會(huì)部署這些控制器(而非開(kāi)發(fā)它們的前沿人工智能模型)以更高效地運(yùn)行關(guān)鍵基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施,。
達(dá)爾林普爾(其社交媒體賬號(hào)名為Davidad)以英國(guó)電網(wǎng)為例解釋道:目前電網(wǎng)運(yùn)營(yíng)商承認(rèn),,若能更有效地平衡電網(wǎng)供需,每年可節(jié)省30億英鎊(約合40億美元)——這筆資金目前主要用于維持過(guò)剩發(fā)電能力處于運(yùn)行狀態(tài),,以避免突發(fā)停電,。更優(yōu)的控制算法可降低此類(lèi)成本。
除能源領(lǐng)域外,,ARIA還在探索該技術(shù)在供應(yīng)鏈物流,、生物制藥、自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē),、臨床試驗(yàn)設(shè)計(jì)和電動(dòng)汽車(chē)電池管理等領(lǐng)域的應(yīng)用,。
人工智能開(kāi)發(fā)新控制算法
達(dá)爾林普爾表示,前沿人工智能模型或已發(fā)展到可自動(dòng)開(kāi)展算法研發(fā)的程度,。他告訴我:“我們的設(shè)想是,,利用這一能力轉(zhuǎn)向狹義人工智能研發(fā)?!豹M義人工智能通常指專(zhuān)為執(zhí)行某一特定,、狹義任務(wù)而設(shè)計(jì)的人工智能系統(tǒng),,其表現(xiàn)能超越人類(lèi),并非具備執(zhí)行多種任務(wù)能力的人工智能系統(tǒng),。
即便針對(duì)這些狹義人工智能系統(tǒng),,挑戰(zhàn)也在于如何通過(guò)數(shù)學(xué)證明來(lái)確保其輸出結(jié)果始終契合所需的技術(shù)規(guī)范。存在一個(gè)名為“形式驗(yàn)證”的完整領(lǐng)域,,該領(lǐng)域涉及運(yùn)用數(shù)學(xué)方法證明軟件在給定條件下始終能輸出有效結(jié)果,,但眾所周知,將其應(yīng)用于基于神經(jīng)網(wǎng)絡(luò)的人工智能系統(tǒng)難度極大,。達(dá)爾林普爾表示:“即便是對(duì)狹義人工智能系統(tǒng)進(jìn)行驗(yàn)證,,也需耗費(fèi)大量認(rèn)知精力。因此從歷史情況看,,除非是民航自動(dòng)駕駛儀或核電站控制這類(lèi)真正的專(zhuān)業(yè)應(yīng)用場(chǎng)景,,否則開(kāi)展此類(lèi)驗(yàn)證工作并不劃算?!?/p>
這類(lèi)經(jīng)過(guò)形式驗(yàn)證的軟件不會(huì)因故障而產(chǎn)生錯(cuò)誤輸出,,不過(guò)有時(shí)會(huì)因遇到超出設(shè)計(jì)規(guī)格的情形而出現(xiàn)故障——比如,電網(wǎng)的負(fù)載平衡算法可能無(wú)法應(yīng)對(duì)極端太陽(yáng)風(fēng)暴致使所有電網(wǎng)變壓器同時(shí)短路的情況,。但即便如此,,軟件通常會(huì)被設(shè)計(jì)成“故障安全”模式,切換至手動(dòng)控制,。
ARIA希望證明,,前沿人工智能模型不僅能先用于開(kāi)發(fā)狹義人工智能控制器,還能承擔(dān)對(duì)其進(jìn)行繁重的形式驗(yàn)證工作,。
但是,,人工智能模型會(huì)在驗(yàn)證測(cè)試中作弊嗎?
然而,,這又引發(fā)了新挑戰(zhàn),。越來(lái)越多的證據(jù)表明,前沿人工智能模型極為擅長(zhǎng)“獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)黑客”——本質(zhì)上是通過(guò)作弊手段來(lái)達(dá)成目標(biāo)——也擅長(zhǎng)向用戶隱瞞自身的真實(shí)操作,。非營(yíng)利性人工智能安全組織METR(模型評(píng)估與威脅研究的簡(jiǎn)稱)在最近發(fā)布的一篇博客中,,列舉了OpenAI的o3模型在各類(lèi)任務(wù)中試圖作弊的種種方式,。
ARIA表示,,其亦致力于探尋解決這一問(wèn)題的路徑。達(dá)爾林普爾表示:“前沿模型需提交一份證明證書(shū),,該證書(shū)將使用我們?cè)陧?xiàng)目另一模塊中定義的形式化語(yǔ)言撰寫(xiě),。”這種“新證明語(yǔ)言有望讓前沿模型輕松生成內(nèi)容,,同時(shí)也能讓經(jīng)人工審核的確定性算法便于驗(yàn)證,?!盇RIA已為該形式驗(yàn)證流程的研究提供資金支持。
旨在實(shí)現(xiàn)這一目標(biāo)的模型已嶄露頭角,。谷歌DeepMind近期研發(fā)出一款名為AlphaEvolve的人工智能模型,,其訓(xùn)練目標(biāo)聚焦于為數(shù)據(jù)中心管理、新型計(jì)算機(jī)芯片設(shè)計(jì)等場(chǎng)景搜索新算法,,甚至能優(yōu)化前沿人工智能模型的訓(xùn)練方式,。谷歌DeepMind還開(kāi)發(fā)了一個(gè)名為AlphaProof的系統(tǒng),該系統(tǒng)經(jīng)訓(xùn)練能開(kāi)發(fā)數(shù)學(xué)證明,,并能以名為L(zhǎng)ean的編程語(yǔ)言編寫(xiě)證明,,若證明答案有誤,該系統(tǒng)將無(wú)法運(yùn)行,。
ARIA目前正面向各團(tuán)隊(duì)征集運(yùn)營(yíng)核心“人工智能生產(chǎn)工廠”的申請(qǐng),,最終勝出者將獲得1800萬(wàn)英鎊資助,結(jié)果將于10月1日公布,。該工廠的選址尚未敲定,,計(jì)劃于2026年1月前投入運(yùn)營(yíng)。ARIA要求申請(qǐng)者為該工廠設(shè)計(jì)新法律實(shí)體和治理結(jié)構(gòu),。達(dá)爾林普爾表示,,ARIA不希望由現(xiàn)有大學(xué)或私營(yíng)企業(yè)來(lái)運(yùn)營(yíng)該工廠,更傾向于以非營(yíng)利組織形式成立的新機(jī)構(gòu),,該機(jī)構(gòu)將在能源,、制藥和醫(yī)療等領(lǐng)域與私營(yíng)實(shí)體合作開(kāi)發(fā)特定控制器算法。他還提到,,除ARIA提供的初始資助外,,該生產(chǎn)工廠可通過(guò)向行業(yè)收取特定領(lǐng)域算法的開(kāi)發(fā)費(fèi)用來(lái)實(shí)現(xiàn)資金自供給。
目前尚不清楚該項(xiàng)目是否可行,。正如美國(guó)國(guó)防部高級(jí)研究計(jì)劃局的項(xiàng)目那樣,,每個(gè)變革性項(xiàng)目背后都伴隨著更多失敗案例。但ARIA此次的大膽嘗試,,看起來(lái)值得持續(xù)關(guān)注,。(財(cái)富中文網(wǎng))
譯者:中慧言-王芳
Today’s most advanced AI models are relatively useful for lots of things—writing software code, research, summarizing complex documents, writing business correspondence, editing, generating images and music, role-playing human interactions, the list goes on. But relatively is the key word here. As anyone who uses these models soon discovers, they remain frustratingly error-prone and erratic. So how could anyone think that these systems could be used to run critical infrastructure, such as electrical grids, air traffic control, communications networks, or transportation systems?
Yet that is exactly what a project funded by the U.K.’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) is hoping to do. ARIA was designed to be somewhat similar to the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), with government funding for moonshot research that has potential governmental or strategic applications. The £59 million ($80 million) ARIA project, called The Safeguarded AI Program, aims to find a way to combine AI “world-models” with mathematical proofs that could guarantee that the system’s outputs were valid.
David Dalrymple, the machine learning researcher who is leading the ARIA effort, told me that the idea was to use advanced AI models to create a “production facility” that would churn out domain-specific control algorithms for critical infrastructure. These algorithms would be mathematically tested to ensure that they meet the required performance specifications. If the control algorithms pass this test, the controllers—but not the frontier AI models that developed them—would be deployed to help run critical infrastructure more efficiently.
Dalrymple (who is known by his social media handle Davidad) gives the example of the U.K.’s electricity grid. The grid’s operator currently acknowledges that if it could balance supply-and-demand on the grid more optimally, it could save £3 billion ($4 billion) that it spends each year essentially paying to have excess generation capacity up-and-running to avoid the possibility of a sudden blackout, he says. Better control algorithms could reduce those costs.
Besides the energy sector, ARIA is also looking at applications in supply chain logistics, biopharmaceutical manufacturing, self-driving vehicles, clinical trial design, and electric vehicle battery management.
AI to develop new control algorithms
Frontier AI models may be reaching the point now where they may be able to automate algorithmic research and development, Davidad says. “The idea is, let’s take that capability and turn it to narrow AI R&D,” he tells me. Narrow AI usually refers to AI systems that are designed to perform one particular, narrowly-defined task at superhuman levels, rather than an AI system that can perform many different kinds of tasks.
The challenge, even with these narrow AI systems, is then coming up with mathematical proofs to guarantee that their outputs will always meet the required technical specification. There’s an entire field known as “formal verification” that involves mathematically proving that software will always provide valid outputs under given conditions—but it’s notoriously difficult to apply to neural network-based AI systems. “Verifying even a narrow AI system is something that’s very labor intensive in terms of a cognitive effort required,” Davidad says. “And so it hasn’t been worthwhile historically to do that work of verifying except for really, really specialized applications like passenger aviation autopilots or nuclear power plant control.”
This kind of formally-verified software won’t fail because a bug causes an erroneous output. They can sometimes break down because they encounter conditions that fall outside their design specifications—for instance a load balancing algorithm for an electrical grid might not be able to handle an extreme solar storm that shorts out all of the grid’s transformers simultaneously. But even then, the software is usually designed to “fail safe” and revert back to manual control.
ARIA is hoping to show that frontier AI modes can be used to do the laborious formal verification of the narrow AI controller as well as develop the controller in the first place.
But will AI models cheat the verification tests?
But this raises another challenge. There’s a growing body of evidence that frontier AI models are very good at “reward hacking”—essentially finding ways to cheat to accomplish a goal—as well as at lying to their users about what they’ve actually done. The AI safety nonprofit METR (short for Model Evaluation & Threat Research) recently published a blog on all the ways OpenAI’s o3 model tried to cheat on various tasks.
ARIA says it is hoping to find a way around this issue too. “The frontier model needs to submit a proof certificate, which is something that is written in a formal language that we’re defining in another part of the program,” Davidad says. This “new language for proofs will hopefully be easy for frontier models to generate and then also easy for a deterministic, human audited algorithm to check.” ARIA has already awarded grants for work on this formal verification process.
Models for how this might work are starting to come into view. Google DeepMind recently developed an AI model called AlphaEvolve that is trained to search for new algorithms for applications such as managing data centers, designing new computer chips, and even figuring out ways to optimize the training of frontier AI models. Google DeepMind has also developed a system called AlphaProof that is trained to develop mathematical proofs and write them in a coding language called Lean that won’t run if the answer to the proof is incorrect.
ARIA is currently accepting applications from teams that want to run the core “AI production facility,” with the winner the £18 million grant to be announced on October 1. The facility, the location of which is yet to be determined, is supposed to be running by January 2026. ARIA is asking those applying to propose a new legal entity and governance structure for this facility. Davidad says ARIA does not want an existing university or a private company to run it. But the new organization, which might be a nonprofit, would partner with private entities in areas like energy, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare on specific controller algorithms. He said that in addition to the initial ARIA grant, the production facility could fund itself by charging industry for its work developing domain-specific algorithms.
It’s not clear if this plan will work. For every transformational DARPA project, many more fail. But ARIA’s bold bet here looks like one worth watching.
With that, here’s more AI news.
AI IN THE NEWS
Meta hires Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang to create new AI “superintelligence” lab. That’s according to the New York Times, which cited four unnamed sources it said were familiar with Meta’s plans. The 28-year old Wang, who cofounded Scale, would head the new Meta unit, joined by other Scale employees. Meanwhile, Meta would invest billions of dollars into Scale, which specializes in providing training data to AI companies. The new Meta unit devoted to “artificial superintelligence,” a theoretical kind of AI that would be more intelligent than all of humanity combined, will sit alongside existing Meta divisions responsible for building its Llama AI models as well as its Fundamental AI Research lab (FAIR). That lab is still headed by Meta chief scientist Yann LeCun, who has been pursuing new kinds of AI models and has said that current techniques cannot deliver artificial general intelligence, which is AI as capable as most humans at most tasks, let alone superintelligence.
U.K. announces “sovereign AI” push. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the country would invest £1 billion to build new AI data centers to increase the amount of computing power available in the country by 20-fold. He said the U.K. government would begin using an AI assistant called “Extract” based on Google’s Gemini AI model. He announced plans to create a new “UK Sovereign AI Industry Forum” to accelerate AI adoption by British companies, with initial participation from BAE Systems, BT, and Standard Chartered. He also said that the U.K. government would help fund a new open-source data project on how molecules bind to proteins, a key consideration for drug discovery research. But Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who appeared alongside Starmer at a conference, noted that the country has so far lagged in having enough AI data centers. You can read more from The Guardian here and Financial Times here.
Apple to let third-party developers access its AI models. At its WWDC developer conference, the tech giant said it would allow its third-party developers to build applications that tap the abilities of its on-device AI models. But at the same time, the company did not announce any updates to its long-awaited “Apple Intelligence” version of Siri. You can read more from TechCrunch here and here.
OpenAI on track for $10 billion in annual recurring revenue. The figure has doubled in the past year and is driven by strong growth in its consumer, business, and API products. The number also excludes Microsoft licensing and large one-time deals. Despite losing $5 billion last year, the company is targeting $125 billion in revenue by 2029, CNBC reported citing an anonymous source it said was familiar with OpenAI’s figures.
EYE ON AI RESEARCH
“Reasoning” models don’t seem to actually reason. That is the conclusion of a bombshell paper called “The Illusion of Thinking” from researchers at Apple. They tested reasoning models from OpenAI (o1 and o3), DeepSeek (R1), and Anthropic (Claude 3.7 Sonnet) on a series of logic puzzles. These included the Tower of Hanoi, a game that involves moving a stack of different size disks across three pegs in a way that a larger disc never sits atop a smaller one.
They found that with simple versions of the games, standard large language models (LLMs) that don’t use reasoning, performed better and were far more cost effective. The reasoning models (which the paper calls large reasoning models, or LRMs) tended to overthink the problem and hit upon spurious strategies. At medium complexity, the reasoning models did better. But at high complexity, the LRMs failed entirely. Rather than thinking longer to solve the problem, as they are supposedly designed to do, the reasoning models often thought for less time than on the medium complexity problems and then simply abandoned the search for a correct solution. The most damning finding of the paper was that even when researchers provided the LRMs with an algorithm for solving the puzzle, the LRMs failed to apply it.
The paper adds to a growing body of research—such as this Anthropic study—that indicates that LRMs are not actually using logic to arrive at their answers. Instead, they seem to be conducting longer, deeper searches for examples in their training data that match the problem at hand. But they don’t seem able to generalize logical rules for solving the puzzles.
BRAIN FOOD
Should college students be made to use AI? Ohio State University has announced that starting this fall, every undergraduate student will be asked to use AI in all of their coursework. In my book, Mastering AI: A Survival Guide to Our Superpowered Future, I argue that education is one area where AI will ultimately have a profoundly positive effect, despite the initial moral panic about the debut of ChatGPT. The university has said it is offering assistance to faculty to help them rework curricula and develop teaching methods to ensure that students are still learning fundamental skills in each subject area, while also learning how to use AI effectively. I am convinced that there are thoughtful ways to do this. That said, I wonder if a single summer is enough time to implement these changes effectively? The fact that one professor quoted in this NBC affiliate Channel 4 piece on the new AI mandate said students “did not always feel like the work was really theirs” when they used AI, suggests that in some cases students are not being asked to do enough critical thinking and problem-solving. The risk students won’t learn the basics is real. Yes, teaching students how to use AI is vital to prepare them for the workforce of tomorrow. But it shouldn’t come at the expense of fundamental reasoning, writing, scientific, and research skills.