The Role of AI Safety Institutes in Contributing to International Standards for Frontier AI Safety

TL;DR

The paper examines how AI Safety Institutes can influence international frontier AI safety standards by surveying the standardization landscape and proposing three models of AISIs involvement—Seoul Declaration Signatories, US (+Seoul) and China, and Globally Inclusive. It analyzes tradeoffs in responsiveness, legitimacy, and expertise, arguing that AISIs’ technical credibility, international engagement, and convening power enable them to shape standards while maintaining coherence across multiple tracks. The authors advocate a multi-track, centrally coordinated approach where AISIs support or lead different standard domains within existing SDOs and bilateral forums. This framework aims to accelerate timely, legitimate, and technically robust frontier AI safety standards with broad global participation. The work highlights practical pathways for integrating AISIs into ISO/IEC SC 42 and related processes to balance speed and inclusivity in a rapidly evolving field.

Abstract

International standards are crucial for ensuring that frontier AI systems are developed and deployed safely around the world. Since the AI Safety Institutes (AISIs) possess in-house technical expertise, mandate for international engagement, and convening power in the national AI ecosystem while being a government institution, we argue that they are particularly well-positioned to contribute to the international standard-setting processes for AI safety. In this paper, we propose and evaluate three models for AISI involvement: 1. Seoul Declaration Signatories, 2. US (and other Seoul Declaration Signatories) and China, and 3. Globally Inclusive. Leveraging their diverse strengths, these models are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they offer a multi-track system solution in which the central role of AISIs guarantees coherence among the different tracks and consistency in their AI safety focus.