💬 QUOTED: “Governments should urgently take action on AI policy in the next eighteen months. The window for proactive risk prevention is closing fast.”

Anthropic, the Google- and- Amazon-backed artificial intelligence startup founded by two former OpenAI team members, recently released an open letter calling on governments to regulate AI before it escapes from Pandora’s Box, so to speak.

Why the urgency? The company cites the faster-than-anticipated progress of AI models over the last year. Per the letter:

• Models have improved from being able to solve 1.96% of a test set of real-world coding problems (Claude 2, October 2023) to 13.5% (Devin, March 2024) to 49% (Claude 3.5 Sonnet, October 2024).
• AI systems have also improved their scientific understanding by ~18% from June–September of this year alone – while several models' responses to science questions are “on par with those given by PhD-level experts," per a UK AI Safety Institute risk test.

And with great power… comes great potential for misuse. Anthropic’s research indicates current AI models can already assist with a broad range of hacking-related tasks. And as the models get better, they’re expected to be even more effective.

The framework: Anthropic suggests AI regulation should contain three elements – transparency, incentivization of better safety and security practices, and simplicity and focus (so as not to impose unnecessary regulatory burdens).

Read the open letter here.

✈️🌍 STAT OF THE DAY: It may be time to pull the trigger on that long-desired-but-never-taken trip to Mallorca. This month, “good deal” fares across the Atlantic to Europe are averaging $578 – down from $619 one year earlier, and the lowest figure since the pandemic-induced travel slump of 2021, according to data from flight-tracking company Hopper. Analysts say this year’s price lull is likely due to the fact that many Americans made big trips to Europe shortly after the pandemic, and are less interested in flying back there this year.

🤔 DID YOU KNOW? While the Beatles’ legacy has endured for generations, the band itself was only together as a recording act for a total of 7 years and 7 months.

📰 WORTH A READ: ChatGPT and the movie Her are just the latest example of the ‘sci-fi feedback loop’ → (The Conversation)