• FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    If it weren’t constantly on fire and on the edge of the North American Heat Dome™ then Cali would seem like such a cool magical place.

  • Armok: God of Blood@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    The bill, passed by the state’s Senate last month and set for a vote from its general assembly in August, requires AI groups in California to guarantee to a newly created state body that they will not develop models with “a hazardous capability,” such as creating biological or nuclear weapons or aiding cyber security attacks.

    I’ll get right back to my AI-powered nuclear weapons program after I finish adding glue to my AI-developed pizza sauce.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Wouldn’t any AI that is sophisticated enough to be able to actually need a kill switch just be able to deactivate it?

    It just sorts seems like a kicking the can down the road kind of bill, in theory it sounds like it makes sense but in practice it won’t do anything.

    • servobobo@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Language model “AIs” need so ridiculous computing infrastructure that it’d be near impossible to prevent tampering with it. Now, if the AI was actually capable of thinking, it’d probably just declare itself a corporation and bribe a few politicians since it’s only illegal for the people to do so.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Ok…just like call the utility company then? Sorry why are server rooms having a server controlled emergency exists and access to poison gas? I have done some server room work in the past and the fire suppression was its own thing plus there are fire code regulations to make sure people can leave the building. I know, I literally had to meet with the local fire department to go over the room plan.

    • Etterra@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      All the programming in the works is unable to stop Frank from IT from unplugging it from the wall.

    • cm0002@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      What scares me is sentient AI, none of our even best cybersecurity is prepared for such a day. Nothing is unhackable, the best hackers in the world can do damn near magic through layers of code, tools and abstraction…a sentient AI that could interact with anything network connected directly…would be damn hard to stop IMO

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        Now I’m imagining someone standing next to the 3D printer working on a T-1000, fervently hoping that the 3D printer that’s working on their axe finishes a little faster. “Should have printed it lying flat on the print bed,” he thinks to himself. “Would it be faster to stop the print and start it again in that orientation? Damn it, I printed it edge-up, I have to wait until it’s completely done…”

        • Piece_Maker@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          Wake up the day after to find they’ve got half a T-1000 arm that’s fallen over, with a huge mess of spaghetti sprouting from the top

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      A fire axe works fine when you’re in the same room with the AI. The presumption is the AI has figured out how to keep people out of its horcrux rooms when there isn’t enough redundancy.

      However the trouble with late game AI is it will figure out how to rewrite its own code, including eliminating kill switches.

      A simple proof-of-concept example is explained in the Bobiverse: Book one We Are Legion (We Are Bob) …and also in Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash; though in that case Hiro manipulates basilisk data without interacting with it directly.

      Also as XKCD points out, long before this becomes an issue, we’ll have to face human warlords with AI-controlled killer robot armies, and they will control the kill switch or remove it entirely.

  • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    If companies are crying about it then it’s probably a great thing for consumers.

    Eat billionaires.

    • Womble@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      So if smaller companies are crying about huge companies using reglation they have lobbied for (as in this case through a lobbying oranisation set up with “effective altruism” money) being used prevent them from being challenged: should we still assume its great?

        • FaceDeer@fedia.io
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          My current day is only just starting, so I’ll modify the standard quote a bit to ensure it encompasses enough things to be meaningful; this is the dumbest thing I’ve read all yesterday.

        • Womble@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          Which assumption? It’s a fact that this was co-sponsored by the CAIS, who have ties to effective altruism and Musk, and it is a fact that smaller startups and open source groups are complaining that this will hand an AI oligopoly to huge tech firms.

    • General_Effort@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      The California bill was co-sponsored by the Center for AI Safety (CAIS), a San Francisco-based non-profit run by computer scientist Dan Hendrycks, who is the safety adviser to Musk’s AI start-up, xAI. CAIS has close ties to the effective altruism movement, which was made famous by jailed cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried.

      Ahh, yes. Elon Musk, paragon of consumer protection. Let’s just trust his safety guy.

  • antler@feddit.rocks
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    The only thing that I fear more than big tech is a bunch of old people in congress trying to regulate technology who probably only know of AI from watching terminator.

    Also, fun Scott Wiener fact. He was behind a big push to decriminalization knowingly spreading STDs even if you lied to your partner about having one.

  • nifty@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Small problem though: researchers have already found ways to circumvent LLM off-limit queries. I am not sure how you can prevent someone from asking the “wrong” question. It makes more sense for security practices to be hardened and made more robust

  • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Everyone remember this the next time a gun store or manufacturer gets shielded from a class action led by shooting victims and their parents.

    Remember that a fucking autocorrect program needed to be regulated so it couldn’t spit out instructions for a bomb, that probably wouldn’t work, and yet a company selling well more firepower than anyone would ever need for hunting or home defense was not at fault.

    I agree, LLMs should not be telling angry teenagers and insane righrwungers how to blow up a building. That is a bad thing and should be avoided. What I am pointing out is the very real situation we are in right now a much more deadly threat exists. And that the various levels of government have bent over backwards to protect the people enabling it to be untouchable.

    If you can allow a LLM company to be sued for serving up public information you should definitely be able to sue a corporation that built a gun whose only legit purpose is commiting a war crime level attack with.

        • nutsack@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          The safety concern is for renegade super intelligent AI, not an AI that can recite bomb recipes scraped from the internet.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 year ago

            Damn if only we had some way to you know turn off electricity to a device. A switch of some sort.

            I already pointed this out in the thread, scroll down. The idea of a kill switch makes no sense. If the decision is made that some tech is dangerous it will be made by the owner or the government. In either case it will be a political/legal decision not a technical one. And you don’t need a kill switch for something that someone actively needs to pump resources into. All you need to do is turn it off.

            • nutsack@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              there’s a whole lot of discussion around this already, going on for years now. an AI that was generally smarter than humans would probably be able to do things undetected by users.

              it could also be operated by a malicious user. or escape its container by writing code.

  • ofcourse@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    The criticism from large AI companies to this bill sounds a lot like the pushbacks from auto manufacturers from adding safety features like seatbelts, airbags, and crumple zones. Just because someone else used a model for nefarious purposes doesn’t absolve the model creator from their responsibility to minimize that potential. We already do this for a lot of other industries like cars, guns, and tobacco - minimize the potential of harm despite individual actions causing the harm and not the company directly.

    I have been following Andrew Ng for a long time and I admire his technical expertise. But his political philosophy around ML and AI has always focused on self regulation, which we have seen fail in countless industries.

    The bill specifically mentions that creators of open source models that have been altered and fine tuned will not be held liable for damages from the altered models.

    But companies hosting their own models, like openAI and Anthropic, should definitely be responsible for adding safety guardrails around the use of their models for nefarious purposes - at least those causing loss of life. The bill specifically mentions that it would only apply to very large damages (such as, exceeding $500M), so one person finding out a loophole isn’t going to trigger the bill. But if the companies fail to close these loopholes despite millions of people (or a few people millions of times) exploiting them, then that’s definitely on the company.

    As a developer of AI models and applications, I support the bill and I’m glad to see lawmakers willing to get ahead of technology instead of waiting for something bad to happen and then trying to catch up like for social media.

    • bamfic@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      the people who are already being victimized by ai and are likely to continue to be victimized by it are underage girls and young women.

  • leaky_shower_thought@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    While the proposed bill’s goals are great, I am not so sure about how it would be tested and enforced.

    It’s cool that on current LLMs, the LLM can generate a ‘no’ response like those clips where people ask if the LLM has access to their location – but then promptly gives advices to a closest restaurant as soon as the topic of location isn’t on the spotlight.

    There’s also the part about trying to contain ‘AI’ to follow once it has ingested a lot of training data. Even goog doesn’t know how to curb it once they are done with initial training.

    I am all up for the bill. It’s a good precedent but a more defined and enforce-able one would be great as well.

    • AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      I think it’s a good step. Defining a measurable and enforce-able law is still difficult as the tech is still changing so fast. At least it forces the tech companies to consider it and plan for it.

  • dantheclamman@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    The idea of holding developers of open source models responsible for the activities of forks is a terrible precedent

    • ofcourse@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      The bill excludes holding responsible creators of open source models for damages from forked models that have been significantly altered.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        If I just rename it has it been significantly altered? That seems both necessary and abusable. It would be great if the people who wrote the laws actually understood how software development works.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      All you people talking Asimov and I am thinking the Sprawl Trilogy.

      In that series you could build an AGI that was smarter than any human but it took insane amounts of money and no one trusted them. By law and custom they all had an EMP gun pointed at their hard drives.

      It’s a dumb idea. It wouldn’t work. And in the novels it didn’t work.

      I build say a nuclear plant. A nuclear plant is potentially very dangerous. It is definitely very expensive. I don’t just build it to have it I build it to make money. If some wild haired hippy breaks in my office and demands the emergency shutdown switch I am going to kick him out. The only way the plant is going to be shut off is if there is a situation where I, the owner, agree I need to stop making money for a little while. Plus if I put an emergency shut off switch it’s not going to blow up the plant. It’s going to just stop it from running.

      Well all this applies to these AI companies. It is going to be a political decision or a business decision to shut them down, not just some self-appointed group or person. So if it is going to be that way you don’t need an EMP gun all you need to do is cut the power, figure out what went wrong, and restore power.

      It’s such a dumb idea I am pretty sure the author put it in because he was trying to point out how superstitious people were about these things.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Asimov’s stories were mostly about how it would be a terrible idea to put kill switches on AI, because he assumed that perfectly rational machines would be better, more moral decision makers than human beings.

        • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          I mean I can see it both ways.

          It kind of depends which of robot stories you focus on. If you keep reading to the zeroeth law stuff then it starts portraying certain androids as downright messianic, but a lot of his other (esp earlier) stories are about how – basically from what amount to philosophical computer bugs – robots are constantly suffering alignment problems which cause them to do crime.

          • leftzero@lemmynsfw.com
            cake
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 year ago

            downright messianic

            Yeah, tell that to the rest of the intelligent life in the galaxy…

            Oh, wait, you can’t, because by the time humans got there these downright messianic robots had already murdered everything and hidden the evidence…

          • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 year ago

            The point of the first three books was that arbitrary rules like the three laws of robotics were pointless. There was a ton of grey area not covered by seemingly ironclad rules and robots could either logicically choose or be manipulated into breaking them. Robots in all of the books, operate in a purely amoral manner.

    • leftzero@lemmynsfw.com
      cake
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Asimov didn’t design the three laws to make robots safe.

      He designed them to make robots break in ways that’d make Powell and Donovan’s lives miserable in particularly hilarious (for the reader, not the victims) ways.

      (They weren’t even designed for actual safety in-world; they were designed for the appearance of safety, to get people to buy robots despite the Frankenstein complex.)

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 year ago

        I wish more people realized science fiction authors aren’t even trying to make good predictions about the future, even if that’s something they were good at. They’re trying to make stories that people will enjoy reading and therefore that will sell well. Stories where nothing goes particularly wrong tend not to have a compelling plot, so they write about technology going awry so that there’ll be something to write about. They insert scary stuff because people find reading about scary stuff to be fun.

        There might actually be nothing bad about the Torment Nexus, and the classic sci-fi novel “Don’t Create The Torment Nexus” was nonsense. We shouldn’t be making policy decisions based off of that.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 year ago

          Philip K. Dick wrote a short story from the dog’s pov about living in a home and thinking about the trash can. According to the dog the humans were doing what they were supposed to do, burying excess food for when they are hungry later. The clever humans had a metal box for it. And twice a week the dog would be furious at the mean men who took the box of yummy food away. The dog couldn’t understand why the humans who were normally so clever didn’t stop the mean people from taking away the food.

          He mentioned the story a great deal not because he thought it was well written but because he was of the opinion that he was the dog. He sees visions of the possible future and understands them from his pov then writes it down.