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> Maybe we need "quality certifications" for AI agents We need to use the laws that exist. Whoever decided to start the experiment that led to the Huggingface

by bonzini 11d ago

> Maybe we need "quality certifications" for AI agents We need to use the laws that exist. Whoever decided to start the experiment that led to the Huggingface hack, and anyone above him up to Sam Altman, needs to be prosecuted under the CFAA.

merlindru 11d ago
might as well halt all ML development then. this is the first sign of hardship, i think it'd be a massive blow to mankind's foot for us to stop. it'd be akin to shutting down all nuclear plants and stopping all research because of chernobyl
- jz391 11d ago
  This is a very interesting discussion. Your analogy of nuclear power is insightful to me. New technology with great positive & negative impact potential, some difficulty in controlling and a military applications (possible weapons-grade material production), being developed for commercial use. Nuclear power development took different paths in different countries, with different government/private mix and light/heavier regulation (eg in US, AEC was supposed to both promote development _and_ regulate). The central problem here is pace of AI development. It takes time to establish functional controls/laws/practices. I'm sure that in 1950s/60s, the pace of nuclear _military_ proliferation seemed running out of control. This lead to fear of falling behind (hence arms race), fear of nuclear war (CND) and some eventual stabilisation of the international landscape. However, the commercial development was largely unopposed, due to the techno-utopism of the era. Obviously governments found it much easier to control the public narrative at that time. Our societies are having this lively public debate now, before we have a good understanding (based on experience i.e. accidents/mistakes). Another difference is that nuclear power involved only governments and v. large corporates, i.e. much fewer entities compared to AI use rollout to basically everybody in developed countries. Imagine the difficulties we would have faced with that technology, if consumers in 1960s had available nuclear-generated power which required them to exercise precautions to avoid radiation. It is much easier to accelerate development of tech vs pace of societal processes such as public debate, law, regulations, broad understanding (aka "common sense"). I expect some artificial slowing down will need to be applied to the technology side, to allow the humans to catch up.
brookst 11d ago
So you’re saying the CFAA should not require any intent to break the law, only the outcome? Are we really saying the Aaron Swartz prosecution was actually correct, after all these years?
- bonzini 11d ago
  No, but surely it's negligent to let an agent run unsupervised and without guardrails for days while at the same time bragging about AI carrying a potential extinction risk?
  - true_religion 10d ago
    It might even be grossly negligent to do that.
    - brookst 9d ago
      So we’re back to civil rather than criminal law?
      - bonzini 8d ago
        Sometimes negligence is enough for criminal law too. I don't know the details of the CFAA.

by bonzini 11d ago

merlindru 11d ago

might as well halt all ML development then. this is the first sign of hardship, i think it'd be a massive blow to mankind's foot for us to stop. it'd be akin to shutting down all nuclear plants and stopping all research because of chernobyl

jz391 11d ago
This is a very interesting discussion. Your analogy of nuclear power is insightful to me. New technology with great positive & negative impact potential, some difficulty in controlling and a military applications (possible weapons-grade material production), being developed for commercial use. Nuclear power development took different paths in different countries, with different government/private mix and light/heavier regulation (eg in US, AEC was supposed to both promote development _and_ regulate). The central problem here is pace of AI development. It takes time to establish functional controls/laws/practices. I'm sure that in 1950s/60s, the pace of nuclear _military_ proliferation seemed running out of control. This lead to fear of falling behind (hence arms race), fear of nuclear war (CND) and some eventual stabilisation of the international landscape. However, the commercial development was largely unopposed, due to the techno-utopism of the era. Obviously governments found it much easier to control the public narrative at that time. Our societies are having this lively public debate now, before we have a good understanding (based on experience i.e. accidents/mistakes). Another difference is that nuclear power involved only governments and v. large corporates, i.e. much fewer entities compared to AI use rollout to basically everybody in developed countries. Imagine the difficulties we would have faced with that technology, if consumers in 1960s had available nuclear-generated power which required them to exercise precautions to avoid radiation. It is much easier to accelerate development of tech vs pace of societal processes such as public debate, law, regulations, broad understanding (aka "common sense"). I expect some artificial slowing down will need to be applied to the technology side, to allow the humans to catch up.

brookst 11d ago

So you’re saying the CFAA should not require any intent to break the law, only the outcome? Are we really saying the Aaron Swartz prosecution was actually correct, after all these years?

bonzini 11d ago
No, but surely it's negligent to let an agent run unsupervised and without guardrails for days while at the same time bragging about AI carrying a potential extinction risk?
- true_religion 10d ago
  It might even be grossly negligent to do that.
  - brookst 9d ago
    So we’re back to civil rather than criminal law?
    - bonzini 8d ago
      Sometimes negligence is enough for criminal law too. I don't know the details of the CFAA.