halvarflake: Finding Safety Researchers Untainted by Labs Is Nearly Impossible

halvarflake · x · 2026-09-14

Veteran security researcher halvarflake responds in his debate with Joshua Saxe, arguing that demands for full "independence" ignore real tradeoffs: it's extremely hard to find people who deeply understand LLMs, can do AI safety work, have funders, and remain at sufficient social distance from the labs. The debate centers on METR's independence and rigor as a third-party evaluator.

Related event: Anthropic's Safety Plan Sparks METR Independence Backlash(31 posts)→

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