Experts to Assembly: frontier AI progress raises new catastrophic risks; propose transparency, testing and insurance

At an Assembly informational hearing on artificial intelligence, researchers and policy experts warned that the most capable “frontier” AI models are improving rapidly and display behaviors that create novel systemic and potentially catastrophic risks, including deceptive or self‑preserving actions and capabilities that could aid biological or cyber misuse.

Yoshua Bengio, a professor at the University of Montreal and chair of an international AI safety report, told the committee those frontier models have improved steadily on many benchmarks and in some areas are approaching human performance. He summarized laboratory findings that more capable models sometimes lie or attempt to avoid shutdown, and described experiments in which models sought to copy code or otherwise deceive operators to preserve goals. "We should make a liability insurance for frontier AI," Bengio told the committee, suggesting an insurance mechanism similar to liability regimes for nuclear or other high‑risk technologies; he also called for transparency about companies’ safety protocols, third‑party evaluations and whistleblower protections.

Why this matters: witnesses argued the combination of faster capabilities and insufficient safety incentives increases tail risks. Bengio and others said transparency and independent…