MACHINE LEARNING AND AI: Tech giants warn window to monitor AI reasoning is closing, urge action | TechExplore July 17, 2025

In a joint paper published earlier this week and endorsed by prominent industry figures, including Geoffrey Hinton (widely regarded as the "godfather of AI") and OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, the scientists argue that a brief window to monitor AI reasoning may soon close. 

 

Tech giants warn window to monitor AI reasoning is closing, urge action

by Paul Arnold, Phys.org

edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Andrew Zinin

Long serial chains of cognition must pass through the chain of thought. Credit: arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2507.11473

Artificial intelligence is advancing at a dizzying speed. Like many new technologies, it offers significant benefits but also poses safety risks. Recognizing the potential dangers, leading researchers from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Meta, Anthropic and a coalition of companies and nonprofit groups have come together to call for more to be done to monitor how AI systems "think."

IMPROVING AI MONITORING

"Chain of thought monitoring presents a valuable addition to safety measures for frontier AI, offering a rare glimpse into how AI agents make decisions," said the researchers in their paper. 

"Yet, there is no guarantee that the current degree of visibility will persist. We encourage the research community and frontier AI developers to make the best use of CoT monitorability and study how it can be preserved."

One key request from the researchers is for AI developers to study what makes CoTs monitorable. 

• In other words, how can we better understand how AI models arrive at their answers? 
• They also want developers to study how CoT monitorability could be included as a safety measure.

The joint paper marks a rare moment of unity between fiercely competitive tech giants, highlighting just how concerned they are about safety. As AI systems become more powerful and integrated into society, ensuring their safety has never been more important or urgent.