lately, i’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what exactly independent auditors and evaluators can offer the public. it would simply be inaccurate to bill audits as a “safety guarantee.” as ajeya notes, loss of control evaluation is (in particular) a nascent, unsettled field of scientific inquiry. so i’ve landed on: independent oversight is an essential part of a broader governance framework. and you shouldn’t overstate what independent oversight gets you, but you shouldn’t understate it either. publicly documenting what companies are doing to mitigate risks (or not), which issues are worsening, which safeguards actually work — this can all spur hearings, legislation, industry-wide rules, further scrutiny, etc. but it also matters because, beyond increasing the rigor of the science, it democratizes critical decision making. right now, open questions like “how much risk is too much?” rest solely on the judgment of people at the labs. but the public bears those risks too! they should share in the power to decide where and when to draw the line.