Daniel S. Schiff

CV
h-index10
3papers
3citations
Novelty15%
AI Score35

3 Papers

34.2CYJun 3
Prioritization of Risks from Artificial Intelligence: A Delphi Study of 272 International Experts

Alexander K. Saeri, Jess Graham, Michael Noetel et al.

Artificial intelligence poses many risks, ranging from familiar present-day harms to unprecedented and potentially catastrophic ones. Effective risk management requires prioritization: we must understand which risks are most severe, who is most vulnerable, and who is most responsible for addressing them. We report results from a three-round Delphi study conducted late 2025 with 272 international AI experts. Experts rated 24 AI risks on harm probability and severity, sector and actor vulnerability, actor responsibility, and overall concern. Experts estimated the five most severe harms in the next 5 years were likely to come from dangerous capabilities, competitive dynamics, weapons & cyberattacks (including CBRNE), power centralization, and false information. In a business-as-usual scenario, experts judged 18 of 24 risks as having a more than 10% probability of catastrophic outcomes (e.g., more than 1 million deaths or more than USD 100B in financial loss) in the next 5 years (2025-2030). In a scenario where pragmatic mitigations are implemented, experts still judged five risks as having a more than 10% probability of catastrophic outcomes: dangerous capabilities, weapons & cyberattacks, environmental harm, inequality & unemployment, and power centralization. All 24 risks were judged as being more than 5% likely to cause catastrophic outcomes. AI users and the general public were judged the most vulnerable to these risks, but experts assigned the highest responsibility for addressing them to general-purpose AI developers and governance actors (including governments, regulators, and standards bodies). Across most risks, experts identified information, finance, and national security as the most vulnerable sectors. These findings can guide AI risk prioritization and clarify expert expectations about who should bear responsibility for mitigation.

34.6LGApr 28
Open Problems in Frontier AI Risk Management

Marta Ziosi, Miro Plueckebaum, Stephen Casper et al.

Frontier AI both amplifies existing risks and introduces qualitatively novel challenges. Not only is there a notable lack of stable scientific consensus resulting from the rapid pace of technological change, but emerging frontier AI safety practices are often misaligned with, or may undermine, established risk management frameworks. To address these challenges, we systematically surface open problems in frontier AI risk management. Adopting a problem-oriented approach, we examine each stage of the risk management process - risk planning, identification, analysis, evaluation, and mitigation - through a structured review of the literature, identifying unresolved challenges and the actors best positioned to address them. Recognising that different types of open problems call for different responses, we classify open problems according to whether they reflect (a) a lack of scientific or technical consensus, (b) misalignment with, or challenges to, established risk management frameworks, or (c) shortcomings in implementation despite apparent consensus and alignment. By mapping these open problems and identifying the actors best positioned to address them - including developers, deployers, regulators, standards bodies, researchers, and third-party evaluators - this work aims to clarify where progress is needed to enable robust and meaningful consensus on frontier AI risk management.The paper does not propose specific solutions; instead, it provides a problem-oriented, agenda-setting reference document, complemented by a living online repository, intended to support coordination, reduce duplication, and guide future research and governance efforts.

CVOct 18, 2025
Fit for Purpose? Deepfake Detection in the Real World

Guangyu Lin, Li Lin, Christina P. Walker et al.

The rapid proliferation of AI-generated content, driven by advances in generative adversarial networks, diffusion models, and multimodal large language models, has made the creation and dissemination of synthetic media effortless, heightening the risks of misinformation, particularly political deepfakes that distort truth and undermine trust in political institutions. In turn, governments, research institutions, and industry have strongly promoted deepfake detection initiatives as solutions. Yet, most existing models are trained and validated on synthetic, laboratory-controlled datasets, limiting their generalizability to the kinds of real-world political deepfakes circulating on social platforms that affect the public. In this work, we introduce the first systematic benchmark based on the Political Deepfakes Incident Database, a curated collection of real-world political deepfakes shared on social media since 2018. Our study includes a systematic evaluation of state-of-the-art deepfake detectors across academia, government, and industry. We find that the detectors from academia and government perform relatively poorly. While paid detection tools achieve relatively higher performance than free-access models, all evaluated detectors struggle to generalize effectively to authentic political deepfakes, and are vulnerable to simple manipulations, especially in the video domain. Results urge the need for politically contextualized deepfake detection frameworks to better safeguard the public in real-world settings.