The Deep View: Demis Hassabis offers useful AI safety system

Posted on July 15, 2026 by michelleclarke2015
Demis Hassabis offers useful AI safety system
While others in the AI industry have issued general calls to prioritize AI safety, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis has proposed an actual system. On Tuesday, Hassabis published a 1,500-word article on Twitter titled “A Framework for Frontier AI and the Dawning of a New Age” that makes a series of recommendations for how the industry could establish standards and appoint an organization to oversee them. “The rapid progress we’re seeing in AI requires a new approach to testing frontier AI model capabilities that is dynamic, adaptable, and rigorous,” Hassabis wrote. “The US is well positioned, given its economic and technical standing, to take the first step in developing such a framework.”

He recommended that the industry create a non-governmental organization similar to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which oversees and regulates stock brokers and financial advisors in the US. 

It’s pragmatic that the UK-based Hassabis recommended the effort begin in the US, where the three biggest frontier AI labs, Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic, are primarily headquartered. 

In his essay, the 650-word section “A Framework for a Frontier AI Standards Body” is where he lays out his main points.

Here are his recommendations:

Create an independent standards body: Establish a US-led, federally overseen public-private organization, run by leading technical experts, to develop, update, and enforce evaluations of frontier AI models.

Require rigorous testing before deployment: Ahead of release, frontier models should have mandatory evaluations for cybersecurity, biological threats, deception, agentic capabilities, and national security issues.

Raise the bar for frontier labs: Based on new standards, makers of the most capable models should publish technical documentation, invest substantially in AI safety, vet key hires, maintain strong cybersecurity, and address vulnerabilities systematically.

Build an adaptable international framework: Encourage global cooperation on AI safety, establish independent auditors, and retain the ability to coordinate a slowdown in frontier AI development (via pre-deployment approvals), if the risks become too severe. Hassabis also acknowledges that such an effort would need to be resourced appropriately in order to succeed, and so he divorces those resources from the ups and downs of government and politics.

“Funding would need to be substantial and likely mostly come from industry, in order to attract world-class technical talent and provide the necessary compute resources for large-scale testing,” he said.

Chris Canal, CEO of Equistamp, an AI safety evaluator of frontier models, told The Deep View his perspective on what’s needed for such an organization to succeed. “The entire job of a standards body is keeping the barrier to mass harm high enough that society survives its worst actors,” said Canal. “The body should publish predictions of what the next generation of models will score before release, and be graded publicly on its accuracy. A testing regime that can’t predict is [only] measuring the past.”
I applaud Hassabis for the specificity of his recommendations, even if his individual proposals get dissected and transformed by others. In fact, especially if they start a dialogue and then get dissected and transformed by others. There’s been too much fear mongering about AI in 2026 and not enough people putting forward actual proposals and being willing to have them put under the microscope. I said something similar in April when OpenAI researchers put forward their ideas for an AI New Deal and in May when Pope Leo XIV released his AI manifesto. The world needs creative thinking and bold ideas to start more public dialogue around the future of AI. If we want to see AI take a different trajectory, then it’s up to all of us to engage in the dialogue. Ping me on Twitter to let me know your thoughts.Jason Hiner, Editor-in-Chief 
 
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About michelleclarke2015

Life event that changes all: Horse riding accident in Zimbabwe in 1993, a fractured skull et al including bipolar anxiety, chronic fatigue …. co-morbidities (Nietzche 'He who has the reason why can deal with any how' details my health history from 1993 to date). 17th 2017 August operation for breast cancer (no indications just an appointment came from BreastCheck through the Post). Trinity College Dublin Business Economics and Social Studies (but no degree) 1997-2003; UCD 1997/1998 night classes) essays, projects, writings. Trinity Horizon Programme 1997/98 (Centre for Women Studies Trinity College Dublin/St. Patrick's Foundation (Professor McKeon) EU Horizon funded: research study of 15 women (I was one of this group and it became the cornerstone of my journey to now 2017) over 9 mth period diagnosed with depression and their reintegration into society, with special emphasis on work, arts, further education; Notes from time at Trinity Horizon Project 1997/98; Articles written for Irishhealth.com 2003/2004; St Patricks Foundation monthly lecture notes for a specific period in time; Selection of Poetry including poems written by people I know; Quotations 1998-2017; other writings mainly with theme of social justice under the heading Citizen Journalism Ireland. Letters written to friends about life in Zimbabwe; Family history including Michael Comyn KC, my grandfather, my grandmother's family, the O'Donnellan ffrench Blake-Forsters; Moral wrong: An acrimonious divorce but the real injustice was the Catholic Church granting an annulment – you can read it and make your own judgment, I have mine. Topics I have written about include annual Brain Awareness week, Mashonaland Irish Associataion in Zimbabwe, Suicide (a life sentence to those left behind); Nostalgia: Tara Hill, Co. Meath.
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