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Comment by kspacewalk2 | Hacker News Reader

Once the cat is out of the bag, the problem exists. Worrying about how long exactly it takes for $irresponsible_person to make it slightly worse by reducing the barrier to access even further is, in my opinion, missing the point.

There are many examples of this.

- Non-proliferation folks who think they can actually rid the world of nukes. Will not happen.

- Does anyone seriously think they can stop human cloning, once it's technically feasible, from happening somewhere on the planet sooner or later? By fiat, by legislation, by moral appeals, etc? Will not happen. If clones can be made, clones will be made. Descriptive, not normative claim.

- AI-generated content has reached a certain point where we have to worry about a whole host of issues, most obvious being more sophisticated fakes. "Please think of potential consequences", ad-hoc restrictions, self-imposed or otherwise, are moot in the long run. It's part of our world now.

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> Non-proliferation folks who think they can actually rid the world of nukes. Will not happen.

It looks to me that you're shifting the goalposts here: nonproliferation has effectively reduced the number of countries with access to nukes. Or is worrying about the number of direct military conflicts between nuclear-armed powers an example of what you call 'missing the point'?

The nuclear non-proliferation treaty has eventual complete disarmament as a stated goal. So the subset of people who believe not just in not increasing the number of countries with nukes, but eventually getting that number of countries to 0, are unrealistic. The fewer the number of nuclear powers, the greater the incentive is to cheat. Maximum incentive is when the number is 0 - get nukes and you rule the world. Until it goes to 2 again, and so on.

Larger point being: with some disruptive technology, like nuclear weapons, if it can be done, it will be done.

>Worrying about how long exactly it takes for $irresponsible_person to make it slightly worse by reducing the barrier to access even further is, in my opinion, missing the point

I disagree with the idea that putting restrictions in place shouldn't be done because 'the problem exists'. The problem exists but that doesn't mean measures can't be taken to keep it manageable. I don't think the majority of people are in your intended demographic of wanting to stop the problem. Most just want to prevent exacerbating the problem.

>The problem exists but that doesn't mean measures can't be taken to keep it manageable.

Specifically when it comes to the problem of AI fakes, I'd rather invest effort in harm reduction - train better fake recognition systems - than attempting to stop people from abusing this technological advance by crafting moral appeals and attempting to legislate it all away. Or something as silly as hiding the code. I think mine is a more robust measure.

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