New Delhi: Four technology companies researching artificial intelligence – Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI – have announced an industry body which shall act as a watchdog to ensure safety and responsibility as AI models are being developed.According to Microsoft’s blog, the body, called the Frontier Model Forum, is going to draw on the technical and operational expertise of its member companies to benefit the entire AI ecosystem. The group will focus on technical evaluations and will set benchmarks. It will also develop a public library of solutions to support best practices and standards in the industry.The blog notes: “Governments and industry agree that, while AI offers tremendous promise to benefit the world, appropriate guardrails are required to mitigate risks. Important contributions to these efforts have already been made by the US and UK governments, the European Union, the OECD, the G7 (via the Hiroshima AI process), and others.”A body that primarily focuses on mitigating AI’s risks, the Frontier Model Forum will be open for membership to organisations that develop and deploy frontier AI models, demonstrate commitment to safety and wish to participate in join initiatives.The Forum will establish an advisory board in the coming months.The goals of this body include:1. Advancing AI safety research to promote responsible development of frontier models. According to Microsoft’s statement, it will also try to minimise risks, and enable independent and standardised evaluations of capabilities and safety.2. Identifying best practices for the responsible development and deployment of frontier models. The body will attempt to help the public understand the nature, capabilities, limitations, and impact of the technology.3. Collaborating with policymakers, academics, civil society, and companies to share knowledge about trust and safety risks.4. Supporting efforts to develop applications that can help meet society’s challenges, “such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, early cancer detection and prevention, and combating cyber threats.”