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AI 'kill switch' may need to be mandatory, Anthropic co-founder tells BBC

bbc.com

31–40 of 136 posts

Re: AI 'kill switch' may need to be mandatory, Anthropic co-founder tells BBC

#32
post #14

Why was this not a thing BEFORE continuing to develop AI? Makes me think that if they actually believed in AI causing extinction, they would have already had a kill switch.

I find it hard to believe that this wasn't a serious consideration until recently.

It was a serious consideration, and almost everyone around here laughed at it.

Re: AI 'kill switch' may need to be mandatory, Anthropic co-founder tells BBC

#34
post #17

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the hero defeats the hostile onboard computer by entering its logic core and manually disconnecting its memory modules. That's hard to do if the AI rack is in space as SpaceX is planning to do. You can't disconnect. You can't shoot it.

> You can't disconnect. You can't shoot it. Yes you can shoot them. The US has had this capability for a long time. Anti satellite missiles exist and they can be launched from an F-15 at it's highest altitude.

SpaceX has 11,000 satellites in orbit (growing rapidly) and the US never had more than a couple dozen anti satellite missiles, which could not reach satellites in geosynchronous orbit anyway.

Re: AI 'kill switch' may need to be mandatory, Anthropic co-founder tells BBC

#35
post #9

Like a power cord? or a network connection? You don't use those already? Also when people talk about LLM escaping - where exactly would an LLM escape to? Cancún? Ridiculous.

LLMs are run in the cloud. There’s no physical power cord or Ethernet cable that you can unplug. And even if there were, the runners of these models have been utterly oblivious as to what their agents have been up to. How do you propose to pull the plug if you only realize that something has happened weeks after the fact?

The current SOTA models are probably too big to find/buy/rent/steal enough compute to escape the hardware they’re running on. But SOTA is generally only six to twelve months ahead of smaller, open-weight models.

Re: AI 'kill switch' may need to be mandatory, Anthropic co-founder tells BBC

#36
post #17

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the hero defeats the hostile onboard computer by entering its logic core and manually disconnecting its memory modules. That's hard to do if the AI rack is in space as SpaceX is planning to do. You can't disconnect. You can't shoot it.

> That's hard to do if the AI rack is in space as SpaceX

Pretty much every analysis I've seen concludes this isn't going to be a practical concern

Re: AI 'kill switch' may need to be mandatory, Anthropic co-founder tells BBC

#37
I feel like we're looking at this from completely the wrong angle. The question we have to ask ourselves is what our disaster recovery strategy if we ever need to disconnect from the internet. The issue is with what we have allowed ourselves to rely on that might be technically hackable. e.g. IOT in power systems. That's the primary attack vector.

Another angle is clamping down on products and services that help people create lab-like environments on the cheap.

Re: AI 'kill switch' may need to be mandatory, Anthropic co-founder tells BBC

#38
post #17

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the hero defeats the hostile onboard computer by entering its logic core and manually disconnecting its memory modules. That's hard to do if the AI rack is in space as SpaceX is planning to do. You can't disconnect. You can't shoot it.

well apparently the US now has "space weapons" which by definition have to be remote control

and that means unlike nukes which hopefully still need a 2-man manual switch, the "space lasers" could be taken over by "AI"

and then "AI" just blackmails and threatens the right people with those "space lasers" to get what it wants or even just stay online

there was a 1970 movie based on a 1966 book which predicted this

"Colossus: The Forbin Project"

the book it was based on was written before we even landed on the moon

decade before Wargames

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project

did terribly in theaters, I guess people didn't think "AI" was plausible then

way ahead of its time, they should do a remake

trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOEwiQhzMI

Re: AI 'kill switch' may need to be mandatory, Anthropic co-founder tells BBC

#39
This feels like doom hype.

These LLMs aren't Ultron, they aren't going to disseminate onto the net and hide in a smart toaster. We know where they are, in the giant facilities that draw more power than a small city and whose water consumption can be compared to golf courses, but it does make them sound all the more cool and powerful if we suggest we need a dramatic kill switch to be able to stop them in case of rampage.

Re: AI 'kill switch' may need to be mandatory, Anthropic co-founder tells BBC

#40
post #25
post #3

If you’re building something that is dangerous enough that it needs a kill switch in case it goes rogue, then you should delete it immediately. Or is it a lie?

AI is already proven dangerous enough to be ruining individual lives, pushing people towards suicide, feeding their psychoses, etc. However, whether the concerns from the article are a lie or not is secondary to the fact that these conversations are convenient for AI companies. These types of discussions serve AI companies in a few ways: A company owned kill switch gives them leverage. Altman is using discussions aro…

The internet is already proven dangerous enough to be ruining individual lives, pushing people towards suicide, feeding their psychoses, etc.
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