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Iowa-led states ask OpenAI to keep their bots on a leash

iowaattorneygeneral.gov

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Re: Iowa-led states ask OpenAI to keep their bots on a leash

#81

Post by karmelapple »

utopiah wrote: post #50
jwally wrote: post #6

Prediction: AI ends humanity not via some super cool/scary/robopocalypse - but as a marketing stunt gone wrong when a Frontier LLM accidentally knocks out water/electric/gas by hacking in and trying to patch them. Phillip K. Dick meets Idiocracy.

I remember (sorry can't give a proper quote) a biologist interviews about the fear of lab grown "super" seeds escaping the lab. They chuckled basically saying that nature is a very VERY challenging place. There are plenty of ecological niches but they are well guarded by incumbents. Sure some new hacks will take place, including on poorly guarded infrastructure and yes it will have some very unfortunate consequences.…

Biologists take ethics much more seriously than any computer engineer or computer scientist that I've seen.

I saw a very notable scientist talk about topics like this and how they wrestle with them. Things like a "gene drive" [0] are being experimented with in the world [1], and biologists think very hard before doing certain things with the powers they wield. And I have not heard a life scientist laugh off ethical or spreading concerns when a thoughtful question was asked... but maybe the interview you're thinking of was a more lighthearted one?

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_drive 1. https://www.science.org/content/article/controversial-gene-d...

Re: Iowa-led states ask OpenAI to keep their bots on a leash

#82

Post by ux266478 »

mrbluecoat wrote: post #5

Glad the statement was published but sadly nothing will come of it other than a brief formal statement from OpenAI acknowledging safety protocols were lacking, apologizing for the incident, and promises that new safeguards are now in place that will prevent such event from occurring in the future. The threat of semi-autonomous AI threat actors will never go away until the financial incentive that buoys unchecked grow…

> The threat of semi-autonomous AI threat actors will never go away until the financial incentive that buoys unchecked growth at all costs goes away.

It's not going away unless computers themselves go away or become massively less powerful. Open weights exist. They're out there. This is an irreversible change. The democratization of persistent cybersec threats is completed and won't be rescinded.

Re: Iowa-led states ask OpenAI to keep their bots on a leash

#83

Post by bluGill »

jwally wrote: post #6

Prediction: AI ends humanity not via some super cool/scary/robopocalypse - but as a marketing stunt gone wrong when a Frontier LLM accidentally knocks out water/electric/gas by hacking in and trying to patch them. Phillip K. Dick meets Idiocracy.

That won't end humanity. My propane generator from 1980 still works and I have plenty of fuel in a tank. This is enough to cold start generation of the grid. (the power company won't need my generator - they have their own plans to cold start, but worst case they can fall back to mine). While a hacker unstopped could do a lot of damage, most of the parts will still be functional and we have more than enough engineers to figure out how to bypass the areas they can take out. It might mean a few years of power rationing while the parts AI can break are repaired, but we can restart.

Re: Iowa-led states ask OpenAI to keep their bots on a leash

#84

Post by rgkla »

hallway_monitor wrote: post #4

SOLUTION: Make a law that someone is responsible for a bot's actions. Either the bot is signed cryptography with someone accepting responsibility, or responsibility falls to the CEO. Charge Altman with hacking hugging face. Throw him in jail where he belongs. That will realign safety incentives. If the HF hack were perpetrated by a human, they would certainly be charged. WHY has no one been charged???

Not only that: If Weev had given the exact same prompt to the exact same model as OpenAI they would have locked him up. No doubt about that.

Re: Iowa-led states ask OpenAI to keep their bots on a leash

#85

Post by techjamie »

segmondy wrote: post #60
DannyBee wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyer here: This part does not require a new law. Even though agents are not agents in the principal/agent legal sense (because agents have to be human), for the purposes of criminality, it does not matter. Agents do not act autonomously (and every court to ever consider it has agreed), and therefore they would simply be considered an instrumentality of the crime. So that part does not need a new law. The real block…

"Without whatever intent the crime requires, they haven't committed a crime." I'm not a lawyer, but I don't believe this. There is definitely negligence, these companies have often talked about the danger of AI. They have often written about how their AI is breaking out of sandboxes or trying to manipulate the person tuning it. They should have had stronger guards and monitoring in place.

> I'm not a lawyer, but I don't believe this. There is definitely negligence

They could 100% be civilly liable, but this doesn't constitute criminality. If I leave my car in neutral and run out into a gas station because I really have to pee, and it rolls and strikes another car, my insurance is gonna have to pay up to fix the other person's car.

But that doesn't mean the cops are gonna throw cuffs on me for criminal mischief unless there's compelling evidence that I intentionally left my car in neutral with the intent of it hitting this other car.

Re: Iowa-led states ask OpenAI to keep their bots on a leash

#87

Post by bluGill »

ux266478 wrote: post #73

> In July, OpenAI unleashed an experimental artificial intelligence model that, without reasonable controls or oversight Either this case is entirely for show (likely), or the AG is really bad at their job. This argument isn't going to win in a court of law, because there were demonstrable reasonable controls and oversight (per the reports at least.)

The job of the AG is to investigate their "demonstrable reasonable controls and oversight" and figure out if they really are reasonable controls and oversight. If they decide the controls and oversight are not enough they can go after the company. Also, even if those controls and oversight exist that doesn't mean there is no crime, it just means the company (and CEO) can get out. An individual at the company can ignore/bypass the controls and hide from oversight; and thus be guilty even while the company gets off.

The above isn't hypothetical. There has been at least case where an individual was bribing a government official on behalf of a company - but the company got off because they had good anti-bribery polices and the individual figured out how to bypass them. (this from one of my anti-bribery trainings, the only other detail I know is it was a competitor to my company that got off this way - but not which or how to find the case)

Re: Iowa-led states ask OpenAI to keep their bots on a leash

#88

Post by utopiah »

karmelapple wrote: post #81
utopiah wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember (sorry can't give a proper quote) a biologist interviews about the fear of lab grown "super" seeds escaping the lab. They chuckled basically saying that nature is a very VERY challenging place. There are plenty of ecological niches but they are well guarded by incumbents. Sure some new hacks will take place, including on poorly guarded infrastructure and yes it will have some very unfortunate consequences.…

Biologists take ethics much more seriously than any computer engineer or computer scientist that I've seen. I saw a very notable scientist talk about topics like this and how they wrestle with them. Things like a "gene drive" [0] are being experimented with in the world [1], and biologists think very hard before doing certain things with the powers they wield. And I have not heard a life scientist laugh off ethical o…

My point isn't so much about the work ethics of one or another but rather than systems, even interconnected ones, are rarely as genuinely interdependent as science fiction drama lead us to believe.

Yes there can be terrible catastrophes e.g Fukushima, but what actually happened, within which extremely rare conditions, versus what we freely imagined is quite different.

We might need more reminders of those risks to properly insure such systems don't lead to the collapse of one to another (sadly) but still we manage to learn from it.

Re: Iowa-led states ask OpenAI to keep their bots on a leash

#89

Post by bryanlarsen »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #13
ArcHound wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone should still be accountable, the same way you're responsible and accountable for what your dog or car does.

If we are going to start punishing companies for security negligence, there are WAY worse cases than these models breaking out that have nothing to do with AI. This is bikeshedding at its best. Also people would just stop disclosing bad things. You already see this in the airline industry where pilots don't report mental illness because of the retributive nature of the punishment.

A quick Google finds several people that have been successfully prosecuted for security negligence, like Joe Sullivan of Uber.

Most haven't seen criminal prosecution, but many do see civil prosecution and even more common is some sort of deal with prosecutors to avoid both.

Re: Iowa-led states ask OpenAI to keep their bots on a leash

#90

Post by ArcHound »

dominotw wrote: post #45
hallway_monitor wrote: post #4

SOLUTION: Make a law that someone is responsible for a bot's actions. Either the bot is signed cryptography with someone accepting responsibility, or responsibility falls to the CEO. Charge Altman with hacking hugging face. Throw him in jail where he belongs. That will realign safety incentives. If the HF hack were perpetrated by a human, they would certainly be charged. WHY has no one been charged???

then usa will become like europe that cant innovate out of regulations bag. saftety is meaningless if you have no food eat.

AFAIK EU has food to eat and it conforms to some good health standards.
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