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This talk will cover key insights from the third AI100 report, AI Goes Mainstream: The Scaling Era and the Rise of Generative AI, set for release in November 2026. The report was commissioned by the AI100 standing committee and led by study panel chair Michael Wooldridge.

This talk will cover key insights from the third AI100 report, AI Goes Mainstream: The Scaling Era and the Rise of Generative AI, set for release in November 2026. The report was commissioned by the AI100 standing committee and led by study panel chair Michael Wooldridge.
In the last year, AI models have rapidly improved on public benchmarks measuring their ability to carry out research tasks autonomously. Such performance suggests that models may be capable of automating parts of the AI R&D process itself, thereby accelerating the pace of AI progress.

In the last year, AI models have rapidly improved on public benchmarks measuring their ability to carry out research tasks autonomously. Such performance suggests that models may be capable of automating parts of the AI R&D process itself, thereby accelerating the pace of AI progress.
"In this talk, I will argue against one popular socio-technical solution to the problem of opacity: rationale explanations. Such explanations are taken to achieve many important political values enabled by explanations, such as trust, recourse, respect, and accountability, as well as to enable decision-makers to comply with GDPR. For example, by providing data subjects with a single or small set of counterfactuals that link specific inputs to a desired output value, rationale explanations based on counterfactuals enable individuals to achieve recourse. However, I argue that rationale explanations are often not the best means to enable the relevant political values. The general insight is that rationale based explanations combine two different types of politically important explanations: causal explanations, that give individuals the information needed to adjust their behavior, and normative explanations, which justify the use of the system or a particular application of it." - Kate Vredenburgh
