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Comment by simianwords | Hacker News Reader

This line of conspiracy theory is sooo uninteresting.

“It’s all hype”

“Government bailouts”

“Labs are fundamentally unprofitable”

And the same people who say all this will again claim OpenAI should be held responsible and arrested for when agents hack other systems.

It’s a fundamentally unthoughtout analysis. If you believe that OpenAI should be more careful and prevent future hugging face incidents, surely their decision to delay models is rational? Does it really require tinfoil analysis?

What would you say when their models cause new incidents like hugging face one?

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I think that the economic side of things of how those businesses are run, and the fact AI has potential to be an incredibly powerful tool, are orthogonal concepts. I don't see how the fact an LLM can be used, autonomously or directly, to perform hacking or penetrate computer systems, has to do with the fact that there's clearly an interest from those labs in being strictly regulated while dictating the rules they should respect in the first place. I suspect such regulations will be surprisingly difficult to implement for anyone but the existing US-based labs, and of course it will be super surprising when it turns out that since the federal government stopped everybody from making new frontier models they suddenly got super profitable.

> What would you say when their models cause new incidents like hugging face on

What would you say if Caterpillar builds a bulldozer with a faulty breaking system that kills people? I'd hold them responsible because they failed to oversee the development of their product like every responsible company should do. If they're so much in a hurry to ship that they can't even test what they're building properly, they must be held responsible for that - and I say this as one of their customers and users, not as a random Joe that dislikes LLMs. LLMs are useful but it's undeniable that these labs are clearly desperately trying to keep the lights on no matter the consequences

> If they're so much in a hurry to ship that they can't even test what they're building properly, they must be held responsible for that - and I say this as one of their customers and users, not as a random Joe that dislikes LLMs

You are replying to a post where they are doing exactly that. But you analysed it as if they are secretly in a cash crunch and trying to keep the lights on.

You and I both agree that delaying release is the rational response.

What's the necessity for the conspiracy theory, when the simple explanation is that they are delaying the release for safety reasons?

> secretly in a cash crunch

What's secret in the fact that literally they've never had a single positive quarter yet, and we're a rack of GPUs being repossesses away from going from a bull to a bear market? Their entire business is based on getting financing from VC, and they've been keeping the lights on by pushing any narrative they could to sustain the hype. Regulatory capture isn't really a conspiracy theory, it's the very exact thing multiple companies in their position have done in the past to avoid a market readjustment they knew they'd lose

Models like this are in effect dual use - just like computers and computer programmes in general. Ethercap is a very useful debugging tool - and can also be used for exploits.

We don't ban Ethercap, we police the use - just like with all dual use stuff.

If OpenAI is directing the software ( how ever badly ) that's hacking - OpenAI is responsible, it's not the fault of the software.

Note if somebody else is using OpenAI models to generate code to hack - that's not OpenAI's responsibility it's the person using and running the generated code.

> Note if somebody else is using OpenAI models to generate code to hack - that's not OpenAI's responsibility it's the person using and running the generated code.

No, I don't think a company can get away from releasing a powerful tool that can cause disruption if used poorly. This is just not how society works.

The reality is that labs will get blamed for things people do using it. And they have - look at any news about US Army using Claude etc

Things can be regulated in sensible countries where the things are pretty much single use - like guns.

However, nobody bans cars because somebody has driven one into a crowd, or hammers because of a particularly grusome murder.

These models, just like computers, are universal tools by their nature - they don't fall into the gun category - they fall into the hammer and car category.

> Things can be regulated in sensible countries where the things are pretty much single use - like guns.

Sure and there are regulations on who can own guns and licenses. And that's literally how Mythos is handed out today - to trusted partners. What is your opinion about that?

Also, companies are not allowed to release stuff like Nuclear technology, chemical weapons etc. These literally can't be regulated and a single adversary can use it destructively.

"but but they are just tools ok" doesn't work when the capability is big enough.

Look, it might be easy sitting behind a computer asking OpenAI to release whatever new model because you personally don't think you will be affected. But the society needs to be careful on what it hands potential adversaries.

There is plenty of commercial hacking tools. And those seem to survive just fine.

Issue really isn't that these models can be used for something.

Issue is that they have been used for something with such disregard of any even slightly reasonable oversight that everyone in executive team, board and every shareholder should be in jail just now...

what have they done that they require jail?

The other point is if their new model isn't safe, doesn't that mean all their previous models aren't safe as well?

ie if they were truly being 'responsible' they would pull the lot....

That's what makes people think it's not genuine.

> The other point is if their new model isn't safe, doesn't that mean all their previous models aren't safe as well?

This understanding comes from the fact that people think either models are fundamentally unsafe or they are completely safe. The reality is that there are different levels of alignment possible. So it is really a tradeoff between effort/time taken to align the model and speed of release.

From their own Astra press release.

>Compared to GPT‑5.6 Sol, which without production safeguards went beyond the authorized target 48% of the time, GPT‑6 Astra did this in 0% of cases.

Is Sol still available?

I assume the production safeguards ( filtering prompts and responses ) is fairly transportable between models.

Bigger models require better alignment. So I would assume that the newer models will undergo more stringent alignment checks. For instance, I wouldn't put that much effort on GPT 4.

Why would you expect something else?

So you are telling me Sol can't be used for hacking?

Please...

Also think about it - they are 'announcing' a delay.

They didn't need to do that - they can just release when ready - nobody is expecting them to release a new model on a certain date.

The whole thing is confected.

He’s a booster in psychosis - look at his post history.

He often makes remarks then runs away when confronted. He doesn’t act in good faith.

> So you are telling me Sol can't be used for hacking?

Who said anything about hacking? You can use it, but it is very restricted. But a much more capable model must have much higher restrictions on alignment. Obviously you wouldn't need to spend too much on alignment on a 3B gemma model. This must be obvious, I'm not sure why you bring this up?

> They didn't need to do that - they can just release when ready - nobody is expecting them to release a new model on a certain date.

Again a conspiracy theory? People expected a model during Dev Day. And they are just setting expectations. Whats with you guys and conspiracy theories?

I said if they were serious about 'safety' then given by their own graphs that Sol is less aligned than Astra, they should have pulled it.

As they haven't, the obvious conclusion is that safety isn't the main driver here.

I'm just following the logic - you are the one making assertions about motives that contradict the evidence.

Now I have some sympathy for the idea that these companies need to be responsible, but in the end - because these are universal machines - the regulation is going to be needed at the machine real world interface, not at the model itself.

This is, by the way, why OpenAI is responsible for the hacking that it's AI driven agents ( not models per se ), did.

It's not a problem to have an LLM that thinks it can drive, the problem is putting one it an actual car and putting it on the road.

Your posts wreak of desperation.

You have some kool-aid on your shirt, you should drink more carefully.

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