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Given that any of these bad actors can spin up local inference infrastructure to run their operations pretty trivially, what practical effect does this have bey

by cheald 2y ago

Given that any of these bad actors can spin up local inference infrastructure to run their operations pretty trivially, what practical effect does this have beyond just "hey, look, we're doing something"?

thegrim33 2y ago
Exactly .. every state actor will already have their own local infrastructure for all this, there's no way they're actually dependent on using OpenAI. Most likely this is just a disinfo campaign - "hey look guys, we caught some bad covert actors, so there's totally no nation states making massive use of LLMs to manipulate online discourse, look we caught them, everything is secure, don't worry about it". The funny part is, if it is all a disinfo campaign, then the very resources behind the campaign will downvote and attack this post and try to silence/discredit such voices. Or, maybe I'm just completely wrong and I'll get downvoted for having dumb beliefs. There's actually very little way to tell the difference between the two scenarios. In addition, does the act of me pointing out that malicious actors would want to downvote this now make it less likely for them to actually do so, as it would show their hand? You can recurse down these rabbit holes forever. Fun stuff.
- ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
  Your comment violates the site rules (commenting on downvotes) and cheapens the conversation with the same unfalsifiable conspiracy victim rhetoric, so you should expect to see downvotes for that alone, even if none of the rest of the comment existed.
ben_w 2y ago
Even if you're not skilled enough to stop the FSB from misusing your services, it's worth putting in the effort to stop the next Jim Jones from doing so. And learning to stop a Jim Jones, even knowing that you need to, may help you stop you from being named by the UN as complicit in a genocide, the way the UN explicitly named Facebook as having played a "determining role" in the Rohingya genocide: https://web.archive.org/web/20220217165239/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook-idUKKCN1GO2PN https://web.archive.org/web/20220217165239/https://www.reute... Of course, if you want to prevent even the most capable of intelligence agencies from spinning up their own local LLMs at all, then at a minimum you can't ever publish the model weights themselves — a solution which itself is the cause of around 50% of the criticisms people around here make of OpenAI.
- hermitdev 2y ago
  Honestly, who cares what the fuck the UN thinks at this point? They've lost all credibility. Hell, they just held a moment of silence for the Butcher of Tehran, an individual that, as a head of state, has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and the USA, the genocide of Jews. Not just words, but actions, too. Likely behind the Oct 7th attacks against Israel as well, that literally triggered the current war in Gaza. So, the UN should take a hard long look in the mirror before it accuses anyone else of being complicit in genocide.
  - racional 2y ago
    They just held a moment of silence for the Butcher of Tehran I agree that the optics of that event don't look great. But the fact is, the ceremony was officially conducted in the name of "All passengers of the downed helicopter and their families". Because of that phrasing, the UNSC members who went along with it probably felt they had to do so as a matter of protocol. Again - not something I would go along with, if I were in the room. But it also wasn't the personalized tribute to Raisi and no one else that you're making it out to be. Meanwhile, Israel's primary airport is named after the architect of the 1948 expulsions, the Qibya massacre and countless other atrocities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_Airport The point isn't whataboutism, but rather: "Credibility starts at home".
    - tptacek 2y ago
      I mean, come on. Yes, Ben-Gurion, by modern standards (incl. the standards of his time), not a great moral leader. But neither was Thomas Jefferson! What you've left out of that summary of who Ben-Gurion was: he founded Israel. But more generally, you just haven't rebutted the parent comment. It would be weird for anyone to suggest Israel has human rights moral authority at this point (or at least any more so than any other major world power). But all the parent commenter said is that the UN doesn't have any either, which seems like a pretty easy argument to defend. (As always, just nerding out).
      - 2y ago

by cheald 2y ago

thegrim33 2y ago

Exactly .. every state actor will already have their own local infrastructure for all this, there's no way they're actually dependent on using OpenAI. Most likely this is just a disinfo campaign - "hey look guys, we caught some bad covert actors, so there's totally no nation states making massive use of LLMs to manipulate online discourse, look we caught them, everything is secure, don't worry about it". The funny part is, if it is all a disinfo campaign, then the very resources behind the campaign will downvote and attack this post and try to silence/discredit such voices. Or, maybe I'm just completely wrong and I'll get downvoted for having dumb beliefs. There's actually very little way to tell the difference between the two scenarios. In addition, does the act of me pointing out that malicious actors would want to downvote this now make it less likely for them to actually do so, as it would show their hand? You can recurse down these rabbit holes forever. Fun stuff.

ImPostingOnHN 2y ago
Your comment violates the site rules (commenting on downvotes) and cheapens the conversation with the same unfalsifiable conspiracy victim rhetoric, so you should expect to see downvotes for that alone, even if none of the rest of the comment existed.

ben_w 2y ago

Even if you're not skilled enough to stop the FSB from misusing your services, it's worth putting in the effort to stop the next Jim Jones from doing so. And learning to stop a Jim Jones, even knowing that you need to, may help you stop you from being named by the UN as complicit in a genocide, the way the UN explicitly named Facebook as having played a "determining role" in the Rohingya genocide: https://web.archive.org/web/20220217165239/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook-idUKKCN1GO2PN https://web.archive.org/web/20220217165239/https://www.reute... Of course, if you want to prevent even the most capable of intelligence agencies from spinning up their own local LLMs at all, then at a minimum you can't ever publish the model weights themselves — a solution which itself is the cause of around 50% of the criticisms people around here make of OpenAI.

hermitdev 2y ago
Honestly, who cares what the fuck the UN thinks at this point? They've lost all credibility. Hell, they just held a moment of silence for the Butcher of Tehran, an individual that, as a head of state, has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and the USA, the genocide of Jews. Not just words, but actions, too. Likely behind the Oct 7th attacks against Israel as well, that literally triggered the current war in Gaza. So, the UN should take a hard long look in the mirror before it accuses anyone else of being complicit in genocide.
- racional 2y ago
  They just held a moment of silence for the Butcher of Tehran I agree that the optics of that event don't look great. But the fact is, the ceremony was officially conducted in the name of "All passengers of the downed helicopter and their families". Because of that phrasing, the UNSC members who went along with it probably felt they had to do so as a matter of protocol. Again - not something I would go along with, if I were in the room. But it also wasn't the personalized tribute to Raisi and no one else that you're making it out to be. Meanwhile, Israel's primary airport is named after the architect of the 1948 expulsions, the Qibya massacre and countless other atrocities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_Airport The point isn't whataboutism, but rather: "Credibility starts at home".
  - tptacek 2y ago
    I mean, come on. Yes, Ben-Gurion, by modern standards (incl. the standards of his time), not a great moral leader. But neither was Thomas Jefferson! What you've left out of that summary of who Ben-Gurion was: he founded Israel. But more generally, you just haven't rebutted the parent comment. It would be weird for anyone to suggest Israel has human rights moral authority at this point (or at least any more so than any other major world power). But all the parent commenter said is that the UN doesn't have any either, which seems like a pretty easy argument to defend. (As always, just nerding out).
    - 2y ago