US EditionWho is Zico Kolter? A professor leads OpenAI safety panel with power to halt unsafe AI releases
Kolter's committee can delay AI model releases to address risks like mental health impacts and malicious uses under new regulatory agreements, ensuring safety over profit.
- Today’s date is 2025-11-02, Zico Kolter leads an open AI safety panel with authority to delay model releases, as confirmed by agreements with California and Delaware.
- Because internal divisions and product rushes surfaced, AI safety advocates cite mental-health harms and risks like bioweapons, while Sam Altman's 2023 ouster amplified calls for stronger oversight.
- Kolter brings long experience as director of Carnegie Mellon University's machine learning department and chairs a committee formed last year, confirmed by agreements to retain oversight and safety access from OpenAI's for-profit entity.
- AI safety advocates say they will watch closely as some observers remain cautiously optimistic about Kolter’s role, but others warn commitments may be only words without serious board action.
- Kolter warned that in the coming months and years a variety of concerns about AI agents will arise, including cybersecurity risks and issues tied to model weights, emphasizing immediate harms.
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The professor leading OpenAI's safety panel may have one of the most important roles in the tech industry right now
If you believe artificial intelligence poses grave risks to humanity, then a professor at Carnegie Mellon University has one of the most important roles in the tech industry right now. Zico Kolter leads a 4-person panel at OpenAI that has the authority to halt the ChatGPT maker’s release of new AI systems if it finds them unsafe. That could be technology so powerful that an evildoer could use it to make weapons of mass destruction. It could also…
If artificial intelligence is believed to pose serious risks to humanity, then a professor at Carnegie Mellon University has one of the most important roles in the technology industry right now.
The professor leading OpenAI’s safety panel may have one of the most important roles in the tech industry right now
If you believe artificial intelligence poses grave risks to humanity, then a professor at Carnegie Mellon University has one of the most important roles in the tech industry right now. Zico Kolter leads a 4-person panel at OpenAI that has the authority to halt the ChatGPT maker’s release of new AI…
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