METR (pronounced 'meter') evaluates frontier AI models to help companies and wider society understand AI capabilities and what risks they pose.
Most of our research consists of evaluations assessing the extent to which an AI system can autonomously carry out substantial tasks, including general-purpose tasks like conducting research or developing an app, and concerning capabilities such as conducting cyberattacks or making itself hard to shut down. Recently, we've begun studying the effects of AI on real-world software developer productivity as well as potential AI behavior that threatens the integrity of evaluations and mitigations for such behavior.
METR also prototypes governance approaches which use AI systems' measured or forecasted capabilities to determine when better risk mitigations are needed for further scaling. This included prototyping the Responsible Scaling Policies approach, which has been adopted by nine leading AI developers.
METR’s mission is to develop scientific methods to assess catastrophic risks stemming from AI systems’ autonomous capabilities and enable good decision-making about their development.