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Glossary

Frontier model

A frontier model is one of the most capable general-purpose AI models at a given time, usually the largest and most expensive to train. The term came into policy use in 2023, when the UK government and a group of labs used it to single out the systems whose risks were least understood. Laws that regulate frontier models often define them by the compute or money spent on training.

Why it comes up

Proposals such as California's SB 1047, which Hinton and Bengio supported and LeCun, Ng and Li opposed, targeted frontier models; opponents argue it is better to regulate uses of AI than the models themselves.

People and milestones

The veto of California's SB 1047, 2024 The EU AI Act, 2024 GPT-4 and its system card, 2023 Dario Amodei Demis Hassabis Yoshua Bengio Mustafa Suleyman

Where it comes up on Frontier Minds

Sources