Link to research paper.

Abstract:

Insurance Unlocks Secure AI Progress
We’re navigating a tightrope as Superintelligence nears. If the West slows down unilaterally, China could dominate the 21st century. If we accelerate recklessly, accidents will halt progress, as with nuclear power.

Insurance, standards, and audits together create skin in the game for quantifying, communicating, and reducing AI risks so we can balance this tightrope. We call this the “Incentive Flywheel.”

Benjamin Franklin first discovered the Incentive Flywheel, when fires threatened Philadelphia’s growth. He gathered neighbors and founded America's first fire insurance company. They created volunteer fire departments and established the first building safety standards.

Since then, this Flywheel has been at the heart of balancing progress and security for new technology waves like electricity and the automobile. 

But the Incentive Flywheel won’t appear fast enough on its own for AI: we need to jumpstart it. This essay outlines 25 actions entrepreneurs and policymakers must take by 2030 across agents, foundation models, and data centers.

Markets are a uniquely Western solution to risks. The Incentive Flywheel adapts faster than regulation, accelerates rather than slowing down progress, and has more teeth than voluntary commitments.