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Comment by jmfldn | Hacker News Reader

True but there is a really difficult trade off here between a big tech monopoly and decentralised open source anarchy. I say this as a Linux-using FOSS lover, but we need to open this up as much as possible without allowing superpowers to escape into the wrong hands. I guess strong regulation is the key but I'm just handwaving here really. I don't know how the tradeoff should be made. I see great dangers in hyper-powerful tech being in the hands of the few or indeed of everyone.

By the way, I'm not sure how easy it will be to stop bad actors since barriers to entry are exponentially lower to developing a malicious AI tool than, say, developing a nuke.

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> without allowing superpowers to escape into the wrong hands

The wrong hands will have the same access to whatever "superpowers" AI gives regardless of what regulations are or are not put in place. Regulations can't and won't stop potential bad actors with state-level resources, like China, from using any technology they decide they want to use. So trying to regulate on that basis is a fool's errand.

The real question is, what will put the good actors in a better position to fight the bad actors if it ever comes to that: a big tech monopoly or decentralized open source anarchy? The answer should be obvious. No monopoly is going to out-innovate decentralized open source.

> I'm not sure how easy it will be to stop bad actors since barriers to entry are exponentially lower to developing a malicious AI tool than, say, developing a nuke.

Since some bad actors already have nukes, the answer to this should be obvious too: it's what I said above about the wrong hands getting access to technology.

China, Iran, North Korea, Iran, US, Israel, Europe aren't bad actors. The bad actors don't have state level resources.

> China, Iran, North Korea, Iran, US, Israel, Europe aren't bad actors

On a very good day, as many as three of those might simultaneously not be bad actors.

They aren't bad actors whose access to AI technology is likely to be meaningfully impacted by regulation (but, for certain of the non-US ones, that hasn't stopped the US from trying before), but that's a different issue.

> China, Iran, North Korea, Iran, US, Israel, Europe aren't bad actors.

Seriously? You don't think China, Iran, and North Korea are bad actors? What planet are you on?

Well depends on your point of view

But I don't see China or North Korea firing nukes or even blowing up western buildings. They are limited by the threat of response.

A rogue wacko in his basement can make Kim Jong Un look like Theodore Roosevelt.

The term you’re looking for is “constrained” and “unconstrained” actors. The Chinese and North Korean governments are state level actors, constrained by their internal institutions and power dynamics. A rogue wacko is unconstrained - they do whatever they want with no limitations beyond their own mind and individual capabilities.

Examples:

In the Iran Hostage Crisis you had a constrained actor (Iranian government) making somewhat rational choices to use hostage taking as a negotiation tactic.

In the Oklahoma City Bombing, you had unconstrained actors (Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols) blowing up a building with a vehicle borne improvised explosive device for personal reasons.

We do see North Korea, Russia and Iran funding cyberattacks (e.g. major ransomware operations) and supplying weapons to various external groups. If/when we get to a stage when a wacko in his basement possessing some AI tool could be dangerous, we can expect state-level bad actors to make and deliver such tools to any wacko they'll consider likely to use against the west i.e. us.

Interesting point. Perhaps you're right. I hope so, as someone who otherwise believes in the FOSS ideal.

The fallacy you're falling for is that this is "hyper-powerful tech."

All of the AI danger propaganda being spread (see [1], for example) has the purpose of regulatory capture. You could have said all the same things about PageRank if it had come out in 2020. A malicious AI tool is harder to assemble than straight up cracking. The people who can do it are highly-trained professional criminals taking in millions of dollars. Those people aren't going to be stopped because the source is closed. (I'm thinking of that criminal enterprise based in Israel that could manipulate elections, blackmail any politician anywhere in the world... etc. They were using ML tools two years ago to do this.)

The ML tools are already in the wrong hands. The already powerful are trying to create a "moat" for themselves. We need these models and weights to spread far and wide because the people who can't run them will become the have-nots.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38117930

Let's assume that these LLMs are very useful and provide boosts to their users. It follows that anyone not leveraging them where applicable would be at an economic disadvantage. Without opensource models, everyone would have to pay a Google or Microsoft tax for the pleasure of using a service which could not exist without our work. All code, writing, art, data would have to be continually sent to their servers for anyone wanting to leverage their tools. You might use a FOSS editor or shell but you are still sending all your data to Microsoft servers.

The ones in control of the models also control what sentences are sanctioned, this is a problem the more widely LLMs are used. To add insult to injury, while we are not allowed private use of the models, governments and ad-tech surveillance capabilities will skyrocket.

Do you see the problem here? The capabilities of opensource models are not anywhere near high enough to justify such a cost, now or anytime soon.

And it won't end there. As the march of progress continues, we will see the AI doom crowd agitate for tighter surveillance of money flows, limits on private compute, bandwidth limits to homes, tracking what programs we run on our computers, on who is allowed to read the latest in semiconductor research and on and on.

> but we need to open this up as much as possible without allowing superpowers to escape into the wrong hands

There are no superpowers, and the wrong hands are the ones least effected by any effort at restricting distribution by “strong regulation”.

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