If the biggest danger of LLMs is that they can hack traditional systems, there is no significant threat to humanity posed by releasing them in open-weight form. Security doesn't become less of a problem by making hacking even more criminal. That's what's an unsafe mindset looks like.
Don't think "a smart guy". Think "project Manhattan and CIA put together, all in one server rack".
We're lucky to have "they can hack traditional systems" as an early warning shot. Clearly, it's wasted on many.
This is doing a lot of lifting. If the biggest danger of LLMs is they could uplift bioweapon development, the situation is different. If the biggest danger of LLMs is they reach capabilities allowing for recursive self improvement, the situation is very different still.
We've had LLMs for 5+ years, as well as Alphafold for 7+ years now. No novel bioweapon has been made with the technology that we're aware of. It's a farsical claim, there's no 21st century Aum Shinrikyo abusing the technology, after years of proliferation.
> they reach capabilities allowing for recursive self improvement
Again, you are predicating your entire argument on a hypothetical emergent behavior that we do not have any evidence for. I'm not worried about this whatsoever.
Giving a naval cannon to the average person does not threaten humanity any more than giving them a gun or an LLM does. None of them are a panacea for anything.