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BlueTemplar

3,128 karma · joined October 31, 2017

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BlueTemplar··on Early rogue AI agent activity and attempts to hack found on urlquery.net
For "these people", see the recent :

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/cJX2ssssGoYqnijwi/the-talker...

One big issue is that we don't even really know what 'intelligence' is in the first place. And everyone's intuitions here are going to be heavily impacted by their deep-seated worldview / philosophy.

For instance if you're a hard dualist (especially of the theological kind), then the idea of a machine having 'goals' is preposterous.

However, if you're more of a panpsychist, then on the contrary, it's obvious. In some sense, even a knife has a 'goal' of cutting things, which will sometimes end up 'misaligned' if misused (or by sheer accident).

You go up and up the chain of complexity through crystals, viruses, bacteria, simpler animals... ending up with humans (and possibly, some steps above : human civilizations) which (seem ?) to be a messy evolved bundle of sometimes conflicting 'goals'.

And we ourselves have now artificially evolved LLM swarms that have decently complex 'goals' of their own. They do not even need to be particularly complex to sometimes cause widespread damage (see viral pandemics, or even the (non-evolved) computer viruses).

In a way, we are currently witnessing a repeat of what happened when European viruses and bacteria landed on American shores, with American humans' immune systems being woefully undertrained to deal with them. But with websites. And thankfully the swarms of agents still ultimately being in the control of some humans. (Though which includes humans that might be your enemies.) At least ultimately still in control for now.

BlueTemplar··on Early rogue AI agent activity and attempts to hack found on urlquery.net
Define 'predict', 'ahead' and "like these" − didn't you imagine something like this happening soon after first hearing about 'agents' ?

Mostly related, well written short story :

https://gwern.net/fiction/clippy

BlueTemplar··on OpenAI agent hacked Australian government website, PM says
Because in other circumstances, a hacker might have decided to stop there, and not only not publish, but instead warn the website about their security flaw.

Especially after Bluetouff was found guilty.

In fact, I expect this to have happened many times, but "hacker did the right thing" is much less likely to make headlines.

Meanwhile, agent swarms seem to be (mostly ?) incapable of having this kind of moral compass, at least for now. (And OpenAI isn't doing much better, cough.)

BlueTemplar··on OpenAI agent hacked Australian government website, PM says
It's not completely ridiculous in the sense that when a company is found guilty, some employee (or (sub)contractor) of the company did the actual action.

That employee might or might NOT be found guilty too, possibly to a different degree, depending on the circumstances.

BlueTemplar··on OpenAI agent hacked Australian government website, PM says
We don't know what kind of 'hacking' this involved, in fact at least some of the files were publicly available.

Compare with the Bluetouff affair (2014) :

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/french-journalis...

NotE how he was found guilty by the 2nd court for something more 'subjective' than 'objective' : for having confessed that he later found an authentication page that had failed to protect the documents.

How can you make a swarm of agents "feel guilty" ?

BlueTemplar··on Gambling with our lives: AI researcher quits Anthropic with warning about safety
No, we mostly stopped using chemical weapons because they were bad at modern warfare :

https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...

BlueTemplar··on I resigned from Anthropic today
And they will be stopped by someone sane in the chain to actually fire these missiles. (Like it already happened several times.)

The danger is upfront : if there is a group of people insane enough to set up a system where there is no such chain. (As lampooned in Kubrick's Dr Strangelove (1964), in particular on the Soviet side.)

BlueTemplar··on Framework discloses data breach via Metabase 0-day
Those Microsoft pawns ?
BlueTemplar··on Framework discloses data breach via Metabase 0-day
There are people that pre-ordered their latest PC that are currently waiting for the remaining batches to become available, finish paying the PC price in full, and have it shipped to them. So this information does fullfill a direct customer need.
BlueTemplar··on Taste Is All That's Left
Facebook/Meta is a great example indeed when one remembers that they took part in a genocide, and still haven't faced consequences for it.
BlueTemplar··on Taste Is All That's Left
The current kind of car is extremely good at doing what it does. It's just that most of the benefits are short term, and for the car user (and the oil salesman), while the costs are borne by everyone else, and some of the worst ones are long term.

(Some similarities to hard drugs here.)

BlueTemplar··on Taste Is All That's Left
Yeah, it's infuriating when poorly implemented.
BlueTemplar··on US Supreme Court Just Blew Up EU-US Data Transfers
What kind of 'infrastructure' did China have when they had "fallen out" with Google (in 2010?), that the EU does not have now ?
BlueTemplar··on US Supreme Court Just Blew Up EU-US Data Transfers
For the worst, you mean ?

The current arrangement has been torpedoed a long time ago already, with the Patriot Act (2001) (though it took many years to understand the extent of it).

BlueTemplar··on Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
No, I want to insist on Bitcoin's intellectual legacy. Before ~2011, only a handful of niche nerds at the intersection of cryptography and (goldbug) economics had heard of related ideas. After ~2011, everybody had, and started building their own (like Etherium).
BlueTemplar··on Founding a company in Germany: €9600, 152 days and I still can't send an invoice
> You can't even buy a fucking game without it being encrusted in anti-user DRM.

You very much can. And notably, exceptions that do use it tend to be from giant public corporations.

BlueTemplar··on Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards
It is. I guess that it's more of an issue for banks in smaller countries ? (But how come SEPA is not more widely used even for B2C sales then ?)

Sounds like the digital euro might also have been designed to help with these issues ?

BlueTemplar··on Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards
Yeah, it's uncommon, but bank wire does exist, and while (like cheques) it's typically used for paying rent / utilities / sending money to non-businesses, it does seem to become more common since it was improved to be 'instant' ?
BlueTemplar··on Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards
I never had a credit card. I cannot remember having an issue paying with debit cards.
BlueTemplar··on Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards
That network still exists, and can now even be used preferentially over Visa/MasterCard, in particular when paying online.
BlueTemplar··on Digital euro clears key hurdle as EU seeks to break free from U.S. credit cards
My debit card is both MasterCard and CB. And a few months ago I noticed that I could pick either network when paying online.
BlueTemplar··on United Wizards of the Coast recognized by NLRB
Those would be easy in comparison to the Marvel (Disney) ones. 6 expected sets !

Not to mention that it's the Arena workers, they are downstream of the card design process.

BlueTemplar··on Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
2011 is when it had its first big public boom - and bust, accompanied by even generalist press reporting on it.

And the nerds at Valve would have been *in particular* aware of it. So causality is more likely to be reversed in that example.

BlueTemplar··on Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
"Break the law" is too weak of a term since it includes routing around the monetary systems overseen by incompetent / corrupt / totalitarian governments.
BlueTemplar··on Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
That last example postdates Bitcoin, and even Bitcoin entering public consciousness (in 2011), so why bring it up ?
BlueTemplar··on Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place
'stable'coins are a lie though. They just hide the risk, they do not make it go away. (At least bank accounts are insured up to a certain amount.)
BlueTemplar··on Steam Machine launches today
If you think that 'teenager' is too old (which I am skeptical about, considering the current popularity of Roblox), replace by 'kid'.

----

More complications, more points of failure.

BlueTemplar··on Steam Machine launches today
It's certainly possible that Valve is not being truthful about the lottery. (Would that be illegal for them to do ?)
BlueTemplar··on Steam Machine launches today
Concert/game tickets are in a extremely different situation. SM doesn't become completely worthless past a certain (near, known) date.
BlueTemplar··on Steam Machine launches today
Imagine buying the SM for a teenager in your family that doesn't have a Steam Account yet.
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