# International AI Safety Report

**Type:** Research Program  
**Domain:** Grand Strategy  
**Status:** Active  
**Mandate Origin:** 2023 AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park

## Overview

The International AI Safety Report is an annual scientific consensus document on AI capabilities, risks, and governance gaps. Led by independent AI experts (not government representatives) and coordinated across 30+ countries and international organizations including the EU, OECD, and UN.

## Key Characteristics

- **Epistemic coordination mechanism:** Synthesizes scientific evidence without making binding policy recommendations
- **Scale:** 100+ independent experts, 30+ countries represented
- **Governance approach:** Explicitly does NOT produce binding commitments or enforcement mechanisms
- **Scope limitations:** Excludes military AI governance (national security exemptions remain)

## Leadership

- **Lead Author (2026):** Yoshua Bengio (Turing Award winner)

## Timeline

- **2023-11** — Mandate established at AI Safety Summit, Bletchley Park
- **2025** — First International AI Safety Report published
- **2026-02-03** — Second International AI Safety Report published, documenting that governance "remains fragmented, largely voluntary, and difficult to evaluate"

## Governance Findings (2026)

- Most risk management initiatives remain voluntary
- A few jurisdictions beginning to formalize practices as legal requirements
- Current governance fragmented and difficult to evaluate due to limited incident reporting and transparency

## Evidence-Based Recommendations Synthesized (2026)

- Legal requirements for pre-deployment evaluations and reporting for frontier systems
- Clarified legal liability frameworks
- Standards for safety engineering practices
- Regulatory bodies with appropriate technical expertise
- Multi-stakeholder coordinating mechanisms analogous to IAEA, WHO, and ISACs

## Significance

Largest international scientific collaboration on AI governance to date. Demonstrates that epistemic coordination (agreement on facts) can be achieved at unprecedented scale while operational coordination (agreement on action) remains fragmented.