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How the terrorist group Boko Haram uses frontier AI

casp.ac

31–40 of 224 posts

Re: How the terrorist group Boko Haram uses frontier AI

#31
post #6

[flagged]

What is normal? You know how girls dress, let’s say in the Andes? Is that normal? Or by normal you mean what’s fashion in NY? Or perhaps what the majority of people wears today? Or what the majority of people have worn in the past?

Very little of what the west does can be considered normal.

Re: How the terrorist group Boko Haram uses frontier AI

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

Well, that, and the making explosives bit, it seems. https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/sweet-springs-missouri-...

His videos of making them were on YouTube for years, publicly. It's legal to synthesize the explosives he made. What they did was charge him for the first amendment protected activity that a terrorist then found, and then they claimed that because he made some money because a few people donated a small amount to him for making the videos, and thus he needed a commercial license for being in the business of making explosives.

By the way this is the same thing they tried to charge FPSRussia (the first time, before they convicted him for weed) for and failed.

Re: How the terrorist group Boko Haram uses frontier AI

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that, and the making explosives bit, it seems. https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdmo/pr/sweet-springs-missouri-...

His videos of making them were on YouTube for years, publicly. It's legal to synthesize the explosives he made. What they did was charge him for the first amendment protected activity that a terrorist then found, and then they claimed that because he made some money because a few people donated a small amount to him for making the videos, and thus he needed a commercial license for being in the business of making exp…

> His videos of making them were on YouTube for years, publicly.

So? That doesn't make something legal.

Re: How the terrorist group Boko Haram uses frontier AI

#36
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried chatbots? They invoke AI safety for lots of (very) legal things. The whole point is not to allow people to make bombs. Legality has nothing to do with it.

I can believe some would, but some probably wouldn't care. My local ranch store certainly will happily sell anyone tannerite without even a background check or any sort of scrutiny, you can cash and carry it. Walmart won't but the point being as long as it's legal there will be a "ranch store" that carries it. >The whole point is not to allow people to make bombs I mean even YouTube allows bomb making videos and they…

OK, it sounds like you haven't tried these chatbots.

> Alphabet Inc. for instance clearly doesn't seem to give a single shit about public access to explosives information

Go to Gemini and ask it how to make one.

Re: How the terrorist group Boko Haram uses frontier AI

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His videos of making them were on YouTube for years, publicly. It's legal to synthesize the explosives he made. What they did was charge him for the first amendment protected activity that a terrorist then found, and then they claimed that because he made some money because a few people donated a small amount to him for making the videos, and thus he needed a commercial license for being in the business of making exp…

> His videos of making them were on YouTube for years, publicly. So? That doesn't make something legal.

You didn't read what I said. Try reading the law instead, or even the charge. It's for being in the business of manufacturing explosives without a license. A license isn't needed to manufacture explosives. One is needed to manufacture them as a business venture. They are claiming since he got a little money from Youtube or viewers he was in the business and that was illegal.

This failed when they tried it with FPSRussia.

====== re: below due to throttling ======

>I think "I make explosives for YouTube revenue" falls squarely within the business territory.

Different than what you said initially which was merely making them, which is why I clarified.

>> Licensed manufacturer. A manufacturer licensed under this part to engage in the business of manufacturing explosive materials for purposes of sale or distribution or for his own use.

engaging in business of your own use is not same as non-business of your own use. It's not uncommon for a business to use explosives for their own use as course of operations. It is also not uncommon for people to synthesize and use tannerite recreationally without a license, legally, for non-business use.

>I did read what you said; that's why I quoted part of it.

If you read it then you know you maliciously selectively quoted it then. If that were the end of it and that made it legal, I would have stopped there, but you cut it off there because it was more convenient to your rebuttal to ignore the rest. I only thought you had not read it, because I was being charitable to try and assume good faith.

Re: How the terrorist group Boko Haram uses frontier AI

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His videos of making them were on YouTube for years, publicly. So? That doesn't make something legal.

You didn't read what I said. Try reading the law instead, or even the charge. It's for being in the business of manufacturing explosives without a license. A license isn't needed to manufacture explosives. One is needed to manufacture them as a business venture. They are claiming since he got a little money from Youtube or viewers he was in the business and that was illegal. This failed when they tried it with FPSRus…

I did read what you said; that's why I quoted part of it.

I think "I make explosives for YouTube revenue" falls squarely within the business territory.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/27/555.161

See also: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/27/555.11

> Licensed manufacturer. A manufacturer licensed under this part to engage in the business of manufacturing explosive materials for purposes of sale or distribution or for his own use.

Re: How the terrorist group Boko Haram uses frontier AI

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody tell them that there are models that work much better!

But on a much more serious note, the violating/breaking of the guardrails when making bombs is terrible. I'd have called it unforgivable, but LLMs are a tough beast to tame in the best of situations... and I'm not really sure if chatgpt ever deserved to be forgived. It's also ironic that Fable hits guardrails for nothing, and a literal terrorist group is making bombs and merrily skipping over guardrails.

I feel like I'm missing something though. You can open LM Studio right now and download any model with "heretic" or "uncensored" in the name and it will happily do anything you want with no restrictions whatsoever. What's the point of trying to jailbreak ChatGPT? Is it that much better if all you want is just some instructions to make bombs or whatever? (admittedly - I have no idea if these instructions are actually worth anything, but the models will not object to any question)

Re: How the terrorist group Boko Haram uses frontier AI

#40
After a cursory read of the PDF, my impression is that the methodology is sound, but the results are blown out of proportion. Of course, if the title was "Boko Haram's internal hearsay about their use of AI", it would draw much less attention.

The weak part is that the interview were with only 15 persons that had knowledge about AI. But, from what I understand, but they never used it themselves. Only the top commanders and the specialized units could send prompts. So it's hard to guess what is the real AI use from a few indirect statements. For example, the commanders could have decided to spread the rumor they were using AI a lot, even if they mostly used plain web search, because they thought it would boost the morale.

For instance, why would anyone pay an AI service to get basic help like that:

> AI provided both immediate technical fixes by teaching “how to uncouple the gun by washing it with diesel” and tactical guidance, in terms of “how to change the military formation so that fighters with jammed guns move to the back and others take their positions until the problem is solved.”

BTW, the paper does explain that Boko Haram was initially just a plain sect, rather living peacefully. Then "following a violent government crackdown and Yusuf’s death in police custody in 2009, the movement turned into a jihadist insurgency". And the last time I read a report by Amnesty International about the conflict, it estimated that 55 % of civilian casualties were caused by the terrorist group, and 45 % by the security forces. The Nigerian army sometimes razed whole villages. Like always, the world is not black and white, good guys and bad guys.

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