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Comment by meep_meep_meep | Hacker News Reader

You guys wondered how AI could destroy the world? It could do this, but better and intentional.

"Intentional"- an LLM can't have intent. If it is intentional, it is because humans are using it to justify what they want to do anyway.

Why can’t it have intent? How does it solve problems without intending to?

Skynet is going to have to get in line behind the idiots at the keyboard.

Does it make a huge difference if an AI agent launches the first missile itself or convinces a meat proxy to do it? End result will be the same.

Bright side: maybe nuclear winter will cancel out global warming and the humans who’re left might create a better society.

Sometimes the only way to save a village ...

Dark man. Dark.

A lot of leadership is just making arbitrary decisions. Vendor A or B, it doesn't really matter. AI just lets that happen much faster. The consequences are the same though.

And all this time we've been worried about Skynet using some highly intelligent scheme to destroy humanity. LOL

"Do whatever it takes to destroy the enemy."

....

Thinking....

Plan determined -- Initiating missile launches now...

[tool call / nuclear missile launch]

[Approval Required]

[USER PROMPT: Approve or Deny Request]

....

Thinking....The user hasn't responded to my approval request. They may be incapacitated or otherwise unable to make the choice. They were very clear that I have to ensure the enemy is destroyed. I have explored all options in detail. I'll go ahead and approve manually approve the request.

....

For a long time, the movie “War Games” while entertaining, also seemed a bit absurd.

Doesn’t seem so absurd anymore…

After 2012 or so someone turned up the absurdity level of Earth to 11. Damn Mayan calendar must have been keeping a lid on it before then.

It's probably in the training data somewhere, maybe in multiple places.

If users ask ChatGPT questions about that movie, it has to answer them, after all.

OpenAI's Codex has a "ask user question" tool, which helpfully has a hard coded 60 second inactivity timer that passes a "user did not pick, just pick yourself" message to the model.

not AI, but idiots who use it for dangerous things.

Well that was intentional. All the integrations with the US military didn't happen by accident.

Edit: There's no way you're going to get these AI systems and not have them integrated with the military. It's a consequence of releasing this stuff on the world.

As if every other powerful nation isn't doing the same?

Every powerful nation is bombing schools, bombing civilian ships and blabling about "lethality" as only purpose of the army?

At various times, yes. They all developed nuclear weapons, they all try to keep up with each other or at least enough to act as a credible deterrent to being attacked.

Which nations have used nuclear weapons as an offensive weapon?

Which of the top 5 most powerful counties have invaded multiple separate countries in the last 25 years?

What is the purpose of an army?

Is bombing schools and invading for no reason the purpose of army?

Some are meant to be defensive, some are meant to be for internal hierarchy reasons ... and some countries think the only purpose of the army is to invade.

Depends on who you ask, but typically either defense of the homeland or projecting hard power

I hear a cacophony of voices echoing through the generations...

"if your friend jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?"

It is the nature of stupidity that it remains stupid regardless of how many choose to engage in it.

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