Singapore Consensus 2026: 119 experts set AI safety priorities for autonomous agents
Yoshua Bengio and 118 co-authors from 13 countries target societal resilience and AI agent risks.
The 2026 Singapore Consensus, released as arXiv:2608.14611, is the outcome of the second International Scientific Exchange on AI Safety. Co-authored by 120 researchers and policymakers — including Stephen Casper, Yoshua Bengio, Stuart Russell, Dawn Song, Max Tegmark, and Zhang Ya-Qin — the report consolidates views from over 100 contributors across 13 countries. Representing frontier AI labs, government safety institutes, academia, and civil society, it sets out a shared understanding of the most pressing technical AI safety research problems facing the field today.
The new consensus extends the 2025 edition with a sharpened focus on two areas: societal resilience and managing the risks of increasingly autonomous AI agents. As frontier AI capabilities accelerate, the authors argue that a trusted AI ecosystem requires proactive research into agent control, robustness, and systemic safeguards. The paper is designed as a practical reference for researchers, funders, and regulators, helping coordinate global efforts around high-priority safety problems. By bringing together diverse stakeholders from East and West, the Singapore Consensus aims to bridge divides and create a common agenda before incidents rather than after them.
- Endorsed by 120 authors from 13 countries, including Yoshua Bengio, Stuart Russell, and Dawn Song.
- Dedicated new focus on societal resilience and the risks of autonomous AI agents.
- Builds on the 2025 Singapore report, offering an updated global research agenda for frontier AI safety.
Why It Matters
A unified international research agenda helps align funding, policy, and technical work on AI agent safety before deployments outpace safeguards.