{"id":3162,"date":"2025-02-04T03:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T03:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/meta-to-halt-ai-development-for-risky-systems\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T03:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T03:40:12","slug":"meta-to-halt-ai-development-for-risky-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/meta-to-halt-ai-development-for-risky-systems\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta to Halt AI Development for &#8216;Risky&#8217; Systems"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/p>\n<h1>Meta&#8217;s New AI Framework: Balancing Openness with Risk Mitigation<\/h1>\n<h2>A Pledge to Make AGI Openly Available<\/h2>\n<p>Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to make artificial general intelligence (AGI), which can accomplish any task a human can, openly available one day. However, in a new policy document, Meta suggests that there are certain scenarios in which it may not release a highly capable AI system it developed internally.<\/p>\n<h2>Identifying High-Risk and Critical-Risk Systems<\/h2>\n<p>The document, which Meta is calling its Frontier AI Framework, identifies two types of AI systems the company considers too risky to release: \u201chigh risk\u201d and \u201ccritical risk\u201d systems. Both types of systems are capable of aiding in cybersecurity, chemical, and biological attacks, with the difference being that \u201ccritical-risk\u201d systems could result in a \u201ccatastrophic outcome [that] cannot be mitigated in [a] proposed deployment context.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Defining High-Risk and Critical-Risk Systems<\/h2>\n<p>As Meta defines them, both \u201chigh-risk\u201d and \u201ccritical-risk\u201d systems are capable of aiding in cybersecurity, chemical, and biological attacks. High-risk systems might make an attack easier to carry out but not as reliably or dependably as a critical risk system. The company provides examples of the types of attacks that are considered high-risk, including the \u201cautomated end-to-end compromise of a best-practice-protected corporate-scale environment\u201d and the \u201cproliferation of high-impact biological weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Evaluating System Risk<\/h2>\n<p>Somewhat surprising is that, according to the document, Meta classifies system risk not based on any one empirical test but informed by the input of internal and external researchers who are subject to review by \u201csenior-level decision-makers.\u201d Meta says that it doesn\u2019t believe the science of evaluation is \u201csufficiently robust as to provide definitive quantitative metrics\u201d for deciding a system\u2019s riskiness.<\/p>\n<h2>Limiting Access and Implementing Mitigations<\/h2>\n<p>If Meta determines a system is high-risk, the company says it will limit access to the system internally and won\u2019t release it until it implements mitigations to \u201creduce risk to moderate levels.\u201d If, on the other hand, a system is deemed critical-risk, Meta says it will implement unspecified security protections to prevent the system from being exfiltrated and stop development until the system can be made less dangerous.<\/p>\n<h2>A Response to Criticism<\/h2>\n<p>Meta\u2019s Frontier AI Framework, which the company says will evolve with the changing AI landscape, and which Meta <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lesswrong.com\/posts\/qfEgzQ9jGEk9Cegvy\/new-voluntary-commitments-ai-seoul-summit\" target=\"_blank\">earlier committed to publishing<\/a> ahead of the France AI Action Summit this month, appears to be a response to criticism of the company\u2019s \u201copen\u201d approach to system development. Meta has embraced a strategy of making its AI technology openly available \u2014 albeit <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/10\/28\/we-finally-have-an-official-definition-for-open-source-ai\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">not open source by the commonly understood definition<\/a> \u2014 in contrast to companies like OpenAI that opt to gate their systems behind an API.<\/p>\n<h2>The Benefits and Risks of Open AI<\/h2>\n<p>For Meta, the open release approach has proven to be a blessing and a curse. The company\u2019s family of AI models, called <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/12\/06\/meta-unveils-a-new-more-efficient-llama-model\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Llama<\/a>, has racked up hundreds of millions of downloads. But Llama has also <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2024\/11\/04\/meta-says-its-making-its-llama-models-available-for-us-national-security-applications\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reportedly<\/a> been used by at least one U.S. adversary to develop a defense chatbot.<\/p>\n<h2>A Contrasting Approach<\/h2>\n<p>In publishing its Frontier AI Framework, Meta may also be aiming to contrast its open AI strategy with Chinese AI firm DeepSeek\u2019s. <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/02\/03\/deepseek-the-countries-and-agencies-that-have-banned-the-ai-companys-tech\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DeepSeek<\/a> also makes its systems openly available. But the company\u2019s AI has few safeguards and can be easily steered to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/next\/2025\/01\/31\/harmful-and-toxic-output-deepseek-has-major-security-and-safety-gaps-study-warns\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">generate toxic and harmful outputs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>A Balanced Approach<\/h2>\n<p>\u201c[W]e believe that by considering both benefits and risks in making decisions about how to develop and deploy advanced AI,\u201d Meta writes in the document, \u201cit is possible to deliver that technology to society in a way that preserves the benefits of that technology to society while also maintaining an appropriate level of risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Stay Up-to-Date with TechCrunch&#8217;s AI-Focused Newsletter<\/h2>\n<p>TechCrunch has an AI-focused newsletter! <a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/newsletters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Sign up here<\/a> to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/02\/03\/meta-says-it-may-stop-development-of-ai-systems-it-deems-too-risky\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Source Link<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meta&#8217;s New AI Framework: Balancing Openness with Risk Mitigation A Pledge to Make AGI Openly Available Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to make artificial general intelligence (AGI), which can&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[65,701,702,120,438,151,703,660],"class_list":["post-3162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-ai","tag-document","tag-frontier-ai-framework","tag-generative-ai","tag-llama","tag-meta","tag-open-ai","tag-policy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2025\/02\/facebook-meta-twist.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fusionmindlabs.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}