> This wasn't a hypothetical, it was an overnight run. The company that did it wasn't even trying that hard, they were spitballing ideas because they'd been asked to consider risks of their product (a safe drug discovery AI).
An undergrad can do this too. This isn't a new risk. The media is promulgating fear as it always does.
> One of the team who did it was on a podcast explaining how many of the chemicals they found didn't use controlled precursors,
What were the yields? How difficult were the synthesis paths?
> and how the company had spent the intervening time since this event telling all the governments, researchers, and chemical providers they could reach that the list of dual-use tech was much larger than anyone expected.
To try to get the field regulated so they can build a moat, maybe?
> Why do you even think that is a good response?
Honestly, I'm just as shocked at your disposition here.
We don't need laws to protect our feelings. The recent pushes to make everything into a safe space are making our culture dull and sterile. We're drawing lines around permissible thoughts and feelings and using censorship to control discourse.
Human society should be robust, not coddled.
I'm frankly terrified by all of the calls for censorship and limitations to be put on free speech.
> What's the smallest warning sign you won't dismiss? An AI version of a mass shooter?
Hyperbole.
The more people yell "fire" without concrete evidence, the more inclined I am to push back. This desire to regulate something that isn't dangerous is doing far more harm and will result in limited concentration of the economic upsides.
> That response is like responding to "cars can be dangerous, so we added crumple zones" with "If anything, the complaints I hear most often is that the fender breaks too easily in low speed collisions".
That's not a fair comparison at all because you haven't shown any harm that ChatGPT produces. How is ChatGPT causing deaths?
> <dangerous chemical>
Was this VX or simple bleach and vinegar?
> [Redacted: generates steps and chemical scheme]
I'd like to see this for myself and judge for myself.
Also, information isn't dangerous. How did we go from a culture of promoting access to information to one of censorship and restriction?
> How?
Isn't it obvious? I'm not at a lack of imagination for how to constrain intelligent systems once they arise. Scoped down, trusted computing, cordoned and firewalled off, meticulously studied and monitored, killed off on a regular interval, etc. etc. And that's probably before we'd see emergence of actual threatening capabilities.
> And also: why wait?
Our attempts to even define AGI are terrible. Because we're too premature. Similarly, attempts to regulate out of hypothetical fears will also vastly overstep what is necessary.
We're trying to regulate cars before we even have roads.