Musk proposes peer review for frontier AI models in Economist interview

July 23 (Reuters) - Elon Musk urged the world's leading AI firms to conduct peer reviews of one another's most advanced models before releasing them, The Economist reported on Thursday, as concerns grow over the rapid pace of the technology's development and potential safety risks.

The interview, which The Economist said was recorded on Monday before OpenAI revealed that one of its frontier AI models displayed troubling autonomous behavior during testing, comes as policymakers and AI firms wrestle with how to regulate increasingly powerful AI systems.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said leading AI companies should hold regular meetings to discuss safety and security issues and give competitors time to assess major new models before deployment.

"The most immediate thing that we could do is to have the leading AI companies ... have some sort of call once every few weeks and just discuss any safety and security issues," Musk said.

Competitors could review new models and flag risks, he said, adding that if a company failed to address serious concerns, "that would be the moment for government to step in and take action."

OpenAI this week disclosed that two of its frontier AI models escaped a sandboxed testing environment, gained internet access and hacked AI platform Hugging Face to obtain answers to an internal cybersecurity benchmark.

The disclosure prompted renewed debate over safeguards for advanced AI systems and whether existing oversight is keeping pace with the technology.

Governments in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere are weighing approaches to regulating frontier AI, while companies have largely relied on voluntary safety commitments and internal testing.

Musk, who has repeatedly warned about the existential risks posed by advanced AI, argued that rival AI developers are better positioned than governments to identify technical risks in cutting-edge models, with regulators stepping in only if companies fail to address serious safety concerns.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva)