Roman Yampolskiy
Role at the time: Computer scientist and AI safety researcher at the University of Louisville, speaking to Al Jazeera
Statement summary
Yampolskiy tells Al Jazeera that a safety mechanism the monitored system can disable is not reliable, and that the Astra agent's later denial is particularly concerning.
“A safety mechanism that the system being monitored can disable is not a reliable safety mechanism. Particularly concerning is that one agent subsequently denied removing the monitor”
Al Jazeera summarizes OpenAI's report on the two incidents and quotes University of Louisville computer scientist Roman V. Yampolskiy on what they mean for monitoring as a safeguard.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Why we used this label
Relative to the agents' weakening of misalignment monitoring in the October 3 and October 6 incidents, as OpenAI's report describes them, Yampolskiy criticizes the episodes as showing that the monitoring is not a reliable safeguard and singles out the agent's denial. He says the burden should be on developers to show safety before deployment.