
Sequent, a new nonprofit research organization, aims to develop alignment techniques for superintelligent AI systems by collaborating with researchers from the UK AI Security Institute and Timaeus. The organization plans to raise $100–150 million initially and potentially more if it demonstrates success in multiple research areas. Sequent focuses on creating principled methods to ensure that alignment observed in controllable scenarios generalizes to unpredictable ones, with a goal of building 40–80 full-time employees within a few years. ChinaHeritaQA is a multimodal benchmark for evaluating cultural reasoning in vision-language models, consisting of 2,279 images and 14,133 multiple-choice questions. It tests both visual reasoning and cultural
<img width="150" height="150" src="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-VIkdsj.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-VIkdsj.png?w=258&ssl=1 258w, https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-VIkdsj.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-VIkdsj.png?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1 200w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="3216" data-permalink="https://jack-clark.net/2026/08/10/import-ai-468-23-rsi-ideas-posttrainbench-and-how-trust-and-transparency-interplay-with-ai-racing/import-ai-468-23-rsi-ideas-posttrainbench-and-how-trust-and-transparency-interplay-with-ai-racing-2/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-VIkdsj.png?fit=258%2C258&ssl=1" data-orig-size="258,258" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","alt":""}" data-image-title="Import AI 468: 23 RSI ideas; PostTrainBench+; and how trust and transparency interplay with AI racing" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-VIkdsj.png?fit=258%2C258&ssl=1" />Welcome to Import AI, a newsletter about AI research. Import AI runs on arXiv, cappuccinos, and feedback from readers. If you’d like to support this, please subscribe. Subscribe now Want to be able to deal with RSI? Here are 23 actionable policy ideas:…IFP serves up some “low-regret” policy recommendations…Policy experts with think tank IFP have […]

<img width="150" height="150" src="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-2OSHWi.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-2OSHWi.png?w=258&ssl=1 258w, https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-2OSHWi.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-2OSHWi.png?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1 200w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="3205" data-permalink="https://jack-clark.net/2026/08/03/import-ai-467-self-sustaining-ai-viruses-pacing-ai-progress-confusion-about-ai-and-creativity/import-ai-467-self-sustaining-ai-viruses-pacing-ai-progress-confusion-about-ai-and-creativity-2/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-2OSHWi.png?fit=258%2C258&ssl=1" data-orig-size="258,258" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","alt":""}" data-image-title="Import AI 467: Self-sustaining AI viruses; pacing AI progress; confusion about AI and creativity" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-2OSHWi.png?fit=258%2C258&ssl=1" />Welcome to Import AI, a newsletter about AI research. Import AI runs on arXiv, cappuccinos, and feedback from readers. If you’d like to support this, please subscribe. Subscribe now Self-sustaining and self-replicating AI viruses are here:…Open weight LLMs + a well-designed harness = a persistent, self-sufficient virus…AI researchers have built a prototype computer virus which […]

<img width="150" height="150" src="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-MrVmhb.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1" class="attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-MrVmhb.png?w=258&ssl=1 258w, https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-MrVmhb.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-MrVmhb.png?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1 200w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" data-attachment-id="3200" data-permalink="https://jack-clark.net/2026/07/27/import-ai-466-the-bitter-lesson-for-robotics-ais-complete-week-long-programming-tasks-and-openais-accidental-ai-hacker/import-ai-466-the-bitter-lesson-for-robotics-ais-complete-week-long-programming-tasks-and-openais-accidental-ai-hacker-2/" data-orig-file="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-MrVmhb.png?fit=258%2C258&ssl=1" data-orig-size="258,258" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","alt":""}" data-image-title="Import AI 466: The bitter lesson for robotics, AIs complete week-long programming tasks; and OpenAI&#8217;s accidental AI hacker" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/jack-clark.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/https3A2F2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2Fd6d17996-2bef-40a4-abe3-be72a0e8a227_258x258-MrVmhb.png?fit=258%2C258&ssl=1" />Welcome to Import AI, a newsletter about AI research. Import AI runs on arXiv, cappuccinos, and feedback from readers. If you’d like to support this, please subscribe. Subscribe now Epoch and METR release MirrorCode, a benchmark for seeing how well AI systems can do long-horizon programming tasks:…AI systems can’t solve the hardest tasks yet (good!)…Epoch […]
