“I can’t think of good interventions for ensuring third-party model access.” by Cleo Nardo

Summary

I'm increasingly convinced that model access parity is a big deal and we are not on track to achieve it. By model access parity, I mean a small gap between (i) the model access for lab employees and (ii) the model access for external safety researchers, third-party auditors, and other actors trying to make the future go well). See here for an introduction.

The basic case is this: (1) Regardless of the strategic landscape, outsiders are well-suited to many crucial activities. (2) Outsiders will be positioned to spend billions of dollars towards making things go well.[1] (3) AI labour seems like the most promising route for spending money to tackle these activities. However, during the months where outsider activities are highest leverage, the best internal models might provide 2 to 60 times more uplift than the best publicly-available models.[1] So without model access parity, this AI labour might be massively less effective.

In this post, I attempt to sketch some interventions. But I don't think any of them are great, mostly because they don't seem sticky. I wouldn't be surprised if you can think of something much better.

My overall judgement

Outsider orgs should try to directly advocate [...]

---

Outline:

(00:12) Summary

(01:24) My overall judgement

(03:13) List of interventions

(03:56) Workarounds if we lose model access parity

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
July 2nd, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/iEhqyMGGD4BHQapLA/i-can-t-think-of-good-interventions-for-ensuring-third-party

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.