AI Experts Ready ‘Humanity’s Last Exam’ to Stump Powerful Tech

Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. (Reuters)
Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. (Reuters)
TT
20

AI Experts Ready ‘Humanity’s Last Exam’ to Stump Powerful Tech

Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. (Reuters)
Figurines with computers and smartphones are seen in front of the words "Artificial Intelligence AI" in this illustration taken, February 19, 2024. (Reuters)

A team of technology experts issued a global call on Monday seeking the toughest questions to pose to artificial intelligence systems, which increasingly have handled popular benchmark tests like child's play.

Dubbed "Humanity's Last Exam," the project seeks to determine when expert-level AI has arrived. It aims to stay relevant even as capabilities advance in future years, according to the organizers, a non-profit called the Center for AI Safety (CAIS) and the startup Scale AI.

The call comes days after the maker of ChatGPT previewed a new model, known as OpenAI o1, which "destroyed the most popular reasoning benchmarks," said Dan Hendrycks, executive director of CAIS and an advisor to Elon Musk's xAI startup.

Hendrycks co-authored two 2021 papers that proposed tests of AI systems that are now widely used, one quizzing them on undergraduate-level knowledge of topics like US history, the other probing models' ability to reason through competition-level math. The undergraduate-style test has more downloads from the online AI hub Hugging Face than any such dataset.

At the time of those papers, AI was giving almost random answers to questions on the exams. "They're now crushed," Hendrycks told Reuters.

As one example, the Claude models from the AI lab Anthropic have gone from scoring about 77% on the undergraduate-level test in 2023, to nearly 89% a year later, according to a prominent capabilities leaderboard.

These common benchmarks have less meaning as a result.

AI has appeared to score poorly on lesser-used tests involving plan formulation and visual pattern-recognition puzzles, according to Stanford University’s AI Index Report from April. OpenAI o1 scored around 21% on one version of the pattern-recognition ARC-AGI test, for instance, the ARC organizers said on Friday.

Some AI researchers argue that results like this show planning and abstract reasoning to be better measures of intelligence, though Hendrycks said the visual aspect of ARC makes it less suited to assessing language models. "Humanity’s Last Exam" will require abstract reasoning, he said.

Answers from common benchmarks may also have ended up in data used to train AI systems, industry observers have said. Hendrycks said some questions on "Humanity's Last Exam" will remain private to make sure AI systems' answers are not from memorization.

The exam will include at least 1,000 crowd-sourced questions due November 1 that are hard for non-experts to answer. These will undergo peer review, with winning submissions offered co-authorship and up to $5,000 prizes sponsored by Scale AI.

"We desperately need harder tests for expert-level models to measure the rapid progress of AI," said Alexandr Wang, Scale's CEO.

One restriction: the organizers want no questions about weapons, which some say would be too dangerous for AI to study.



KACST Manufactures 25 Advanced Electronic Chips by Saudi Talents

The chip design process involved researchers from the National Laboratory, alongside students from four Saudi universities. (SPA)
The chip design process involved researchers from the National Laboratory, alongside students from four Saudi universities. (SPA)
TT
20

KACST Manufactures 25 Advanced Electronic Chips by Saudi Talents

The chip design process involved researchers from the National Laboratory, alongside students from four Saudi universities. (SPA)
The chip design process involved researchers from the National Laboratory, alongside students from four Saudi universities. (SPA)

Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) announced on Thursday its successful design and fabrication of 25 advanced electronic chips, developed by Saudi talents in its cleanroom laboratories for purposes of training, research, and development.

The achievement is part of KACST’s ongoing efforts to support and enable the semiconductor ecosystem in the Kingdom.

These chips are distinguished by their versatility and can be used in a range of applications, including electronics, wireless and high-frequency communications, integrated circuits, energy-efficient lighting, micro-sensor systems, as well as industrial and research applications in measurement and testing.

The chip design process involved researchers from the National Laboratory, alongside students from four Saudi universities. This effort was conducted under the initiatives of the Saudi Semiconductors Program (SSP), which aims to build national expertise in this critical field.

The chips can be used in a range of applications. (SPA)

This milestone is part of a series of strategic initiatives led by KACST to support the semiconductor sector in the Kingdom, including the Saudi Semiconductors Program to boost research and development and qualify human talent and the "Ignition" semiconductor incubator program to support startups and entrepreneurs.

Through these initiatives, KACST underscored its commitment to the ambitious goals of Saudi Vision 2030 by localizing strategic technologies, empowering national talent, and achieving technological self-sufficiency in advanced domains.