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OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable

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Re: OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable

#51

So they did the math and worked out it's cheaper and easier to lobby the government instead of working to make their product safe. And these are the people that a lot programmers want to give the keys to the kingdom. Idiocracy really is in full effect.

> instead of working to make their product safe

Make a nondeterministic product safe how?

Re: OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable

#52
post #9

Is this for like military scenarios or like, ChatGPT designed a drug that seemed to work, but people died by the millions 5 years later? Because they should 100% be liable for the latter. The former, good luck trying to prosecute an AI company for something the military does. To an extent, the military would probably want their AI models to be behind their private network, completely firewalled from any public networ…

> Because they should 100% be liable for the latter. Why? I don't see that a drug designed by ChatGPT should result in any more or less liability than a drug designed by a human? I think if a human designs a drug and tests it and it all seems fine and the government approves it and then it later turns out to kill loads of people but nobody thought it would... that's just bad luck! You shouldn't face serious liability…

> that's just bad luck

Can't agree with this. No, not at all. That can't be true... That's not "just bad luck". I believe this is actually a serious case of negligence and oversight - regardless of where exactly it occurred, whether on the part of the drug’s manufacturer, the government agency responsible for oversight, or somewhere else. It just doesn’t work that way. Any drug undergoes very thorough and rigorous testing before widespread use (which is implied by "millions of deaths"). Maybe I’m just dumb. And yeah, this isn’t my field. But damn it, I physically can’t imagine how, with proper, responsible testing, such a dangerous "drug" could successfully pass all stages of testing and inspection. With such a high mortality rate (I'll reinforce - millions of deaths cannot be "unseen edge cases"), it simply shouldn’t be possible with a proper approach to testing. Please, correct me if I’m wrong.

> I don't see that a drug designed by ChatGPT should result in any more or less liability than a drug designed by a human?

It’s simple. In this case, ChatGPT acts as a tool in the drug manufacturing process. And this tool can be faulty by design in some cases.

Suppose, during the production of a hypothetical drug at a factory, a malfunction in one of the production machines (please excuse the somewhat imprecise terminology) - caused by a design flaw (i.e., the manufacturer is to blame for the failure; it’s not a matter of improper operation), and because of this malfunction, the drugs are produced incorrectly and lead to deaths, then at least part of the responsibility must fall on the machine manufacturer. Of course, responsibility also lies with those who used it for production - because they should have thoroughly tested it before releasing something so critically important - but, damn it, responsibility in this case also lies with the manufacturer who made such a serious design error.

The same goes for ChatGPT. It’s clear that the user also bears responsibility, but if this “machine” is by design capable of generating a recipe for a deadly poison disguised as a “medicine” - and the recipe is so convincing that it passes government inspections - then its creators must also bear responsibility.

EDIT: I've just remembered... I'm not sure how relevant this is, but I've just remembered the Therac-25 incidents, where some patients were receiving the overdose of radiation due to software faults. Who was to blame - the users (operators) or the manufacturer (AECL)? I'm unsure though how applicable it is to the hypothetical ChatGPT case, because you physically cannot "program" the guardrails in the same way as you could do in the deterministic program.

Re: OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable

#53

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…

Making knowledge illegal is a dangerous precedent. Actions should be illegal, not knowledge. Don't outlaw knowing how to make neurotoxic agents, outlaw actually trying to make them.

As for OpenAI immunity, I'm not sure I see the problem. Consider the converse position: if an OpenAI model helped someone create a cancer cure, would OpenAI see a dime of that money? If they can't benefit proportionally from their tool allowing people to achieve something good, then why should they be liable for their tool allowing people to achieve something bad.

They're positioning their tool as a utility: ultimately neutral, like electricity. That seems eminently reasonable.

Re: OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable

#54
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the whole “rationalist” movement is full of those lying fks that use a thin veneer of fallacious logic and self aggrandising discourse to rationalise their hoarding of resources and bottomless greed. They’re very well established in Bay Area and AI world.

Is Sam even a rationalist, or describe his views as rationalist?

Not directly, but very friendly to the movement and people in it.

Re: OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable

#55

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…

The knowledge is one thing. But the competence of execution and the will to act are difficult to line up.

Yes there should be safe guards, but after a while you're jumping at shadows.

I'm more worried about depressed kids getting on chat and being encouraged to kill themselves than terrorist attacks.

We know what a cancer algorithmic social media is yet we don't act.

I doubt there will be any real and serious opposition to this bill, but there should be.

Re: OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable

#56

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…

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 get this info for a long time now. Execution though has still steadily required experts.

Re: OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable

#57

I forget, wasn't OpenAI the company that was formed as a nonprofit to limit the risks of LLMs? Founded by a bunch of visionaries scared of what they had wrought and anxious to lead so they could make sure it was only used responsibly?

Rule #1: Never trust a company with "Open" in only their name and is anything but, in real.

Re: OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable

#58
post #28

This seems par for the course for OpenAI/Sam Altman. Unfortunately they are not the first company to try and externalize their costs, and they will not be the last. Serious question, maybe a bit naive: Is there anything we can do to push back against and discourage the externalization of costs onto others? Is this simply a matter of greed and profit-seeking outweighing one's morals (assuming one has them to begin wit…

A lot of people will dismiss this answer, but... vote for Democrats. With Bernie and upcoming young Democrats more and more are pushing back. The parties definitely are not the same. Democrats created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Republicans destroyed it.

Push your representatives to crush monopolies and manipulative practices. This happened before in the gilded age. Only a popular response can turn the tide.

Also, primaries are coming up, and not all Democrats are the same either. Plenty of the old school Democrats are facing progressive challengers. So, vote for the ones that will stand up to this garbage and follow up on whether they do. There are a lot of new faces in the Democratic party who are standing up to the BS.

The US has a lot of potential to change if we push it. A 25 point swing toward people who don't consider grift a personal priority will change a lot of things.

Re: OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable

#59

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…

> I am very confident when I say that it keeps every single person that works at anti-terrorism units awake.

Wow, that's quite the statement about the excellency of our institutions. Does not seem likely but, what the hell, I'll take my oversized dose of positivity for today!

Re: OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable

#60

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…

> neurotoxic agents from items you can get at most everyday stores I mean, bleach and ammonia will do that. So I'm not sure that's really much of an accomplishment for AI.

It went way beyond that, neurotoxins such as vx are heavy and linger around for a long time, just having a small amount of it placed in any metro (while trying to stay alive yourself) means the deaths of thousands of people. I am not even sure if it's legal to mention some of the uncategorized chemical solutions that it either hallucinated or figured out from relative knowledge.
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