David Zollikofer (CLE / ETH Zurich) wins AI Safety Prize
David Zollikofer, research assistant of Prof. Elliott Ash at the ETH Zurich Center for Law & Economics, and Ben Zimmerman from the University of Colorado Boulder have won the AI Safety Prize at the Swiss Cyber Security Days.
external page David Zollikofer and external page Ben Zimmerman received the award and the prize money of 7'500 CHF for their paper external page Synthetic Cancer - Augmenting Worms with LLMs. In their study, they show how AI can create worms that are distributed via email and create considerable damage. Their program is supposed to help security experts to develop ways to block such attacks.
The think tank external page Pour Demain and the organisers of the external page Swiss Cyber Security Days (SCSD) have launched the external page AI Safety Prize in partnership with the Swiss federal government and academia due to increasing proliferation of AI systems with safety-critical implications. It is designed to reward individuals who identify and report security vulnerabilities in AI systems. This prize is the first of its kind in the German-speaking area and is an important event in the advancement of AI safety. Around 30 projects were submitted for this year's fist "AI Safety Prize", and the four best were honored at the Swiss Cyber Security Days in Bern (February 20 & 21, 2024).
Congratulations, David and Ben!
Swiss national radio channel SRF1 reported on the AI Safety Prize and the project of David Zollikofer and Ben Zimmerman in the program "Echo der Zeit" on February 20, 2024.
external page Listen to it here