221–230 of 343 posts
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Wasnt this as accessible pre AI with just Google search too?
the people that want to make sure the AI never gives you any "potentially dangerous information" also want to rigorously control your google search results, and also what books you're allowed to read
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> I am not a chemist so I can't back it up, but if an AI can solve mathematics it's not unreasonable to say that they can also solve creating new neurotoxins en masse. Right now it kinda is. LLMs can do interesting things in mathematics while also making weird and unnecessary mistakes. With tool use that can improve. Other AI besides LLMs can do better, and have been for a while now, but think about how available LLM…
Well the worst outcome is that you make something deadly which is what you are creating anyway, do that for a year and you could possibly produce a very deadly substance that doesn't have a known treatment.
Which is worse, (1) accidentally blowing yourself up with home-made nitroglycerin/poisoning yourself because your home-made fume hood was grossly insufficient, or (2) accidentally making a novel long-lived compound which will give 20 people slow-growing cancers that will on average lower their life expectancy by 2 years each?
What if it's a small dose of a mercury compound (or methyl alcohol) at a dose which causes a small degree of mental impairment in a large number of people?
If you're actually trying to cause harm, then your "worst" case scenario is diametrically opposed to everyone else's worst case scenario, because for you the "worst" case is that it does nothing at great expense.
Right now, I expect LLM failures to be more of the "does nothing or kills user" kind; given what I see from NileRed, even if you know what you're doing, chemistry can be hard to get right.
I have made both GPT 5.4 and Opus 4.6 produce me content on creating neurotoxic agents from items you can get at most everyday stores. It struggled to suggest how to source phosphorus, but eventually lead me to some ebay listings that sell phosphorus elemental 'decorations' and also lead me towards real!! blackmarket codewords for sourcing such materials. It coached me how to: stay safe, what materials I need, how to…
So, regardless of whether you think it's great that Opus gives this info, we need better solutions than legal liability for US corporations. When the open models have the ability to do damage, there's nobody to sue, no data center obstruction that will work. That's just the reality we have to front-run.
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Countless downloadable models (including de-aligned mainstream models) can do this.
None have had the capability to provide me with instructions that have this high of accuracy including the suggesion of completely novel chemical reactions. I am not a chemist so I can't back it up, but if an AI can solve mathematics it's not unreasonable to say that they can also solve creating new neurotoxins en masse.
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While scary, information like this has been pretty accessible for 20-30 years now. In the wild west days of the early internet, there were whole forums devoted to "stuff the government doesn't want you to know" (Temple Of The Screaming Electron, anyone?). I suppose the friction is scariest part, every year the IQ required to end the world drops by a point, but motivated and mildly intelligent people have been able to…
I categorize this kind of stuff as "Crisis of accessibility" . AI is not alone in this territory, happens all over the place. Basically it's a problem that's existed for ages but the barrier to entry was high enough we didn't care. Think 3D printing, it's not all that hard to make a zip gun or similar home-made firearm, but it's still harder than selecting an STL and hitting print. You could always find info about ho…
There were hundreds of mass shootings in America in 2025 alone [1]. None of them involved a 3D-printed weapon.
To my knowledge, there has been one confirmed shooting with a 3D-printed gun, and it didn't uniquely enable the crime.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...
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the people that want to make sure the AI never gives you any "potentially dangerous information" also want to rigorously control your google search results, and also what books you're allowed to read
And what bathroom you go into, and what your genitals look like.
I have made both GPT 5.4 and Opus 4.6 produce me content on creating neurotoxic agents from items you can get at most everyday stores. It struggled to suggest how to source phosphorus, but eventually lead me to some ebay listings that sell phosphorus elemental 'decorations' and also lead me towards real!! blackmarket codewords for sourcing such materials. It coached me how to: stay safe, what materials I need, how to…
As an Iowan, this reminds me a lot of the bill that's been pushed through my state's senate twice now (as recently as last year), which would prevent Iowans from filing lawsuits against pesticide and herbicide companies if those companies follow the EPA's labeling guidelines. The bill passed the senate both times, only stopped because the house declined to take it up. For context, Iowa has the fastest growing rate of…
> Iowa has the fastest growing rate of new cancer diagnoses in the country, and the second highest overall cancer rate Iowa also has a lot of farmers spraying pesticides and herbicides. This feels like genuine political competition between local business interests and public health concerns.
You just described the US at large.
The evidently extremely difficult decision between making money for a few, or making life better for everyone.
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> Iowa has the fastest growing rate of new cancer diagnoses in the country, and the second highest overall cancer rate Iowa also has a lot of farmers spraying pesticides and herbicides. This feels like genuine political competition between local business interests and public health concerns.
> This feels like genuine political competition between local business interests and public health concerns. You just described the US at large. The evidently extremely difficult decision between making money for a few, or making life better for everyone.
I described any democracy in a society with private property. Even without private property, you will have issues with concentrated benefits and diffuse harms–negotiating that is part and parcel with governance.
Iowa businsses petitioning their cause is one thing. OpenAI seagulling in to take a shit in Springfield strikes me as being categorically different.