Last month we launched Project Glasswing, our collaborative AI cybersecurity initiative. Since then, we and our partners have found more than ten thousand high- or critical-severity vulnerabilities in essential software.
That’s true, but not every company can realistically afford security by default. The real shift is that, before Mythos and similar players, the assumption was that, economically, these exploits would only be used against high-value targets. That assumption has now fundamentally changed.
.@PalmerLuckey explains why Anthropic’s position is wrong:
“Imagine if I said. ‘I would never sell to [some] country the US works with.’ How could the US ever rely on me? And if they get into a position where they have to rely on me— I end up with more power than the President.”
“People have tried to push back and say, ‘Palmer, you do have a responsibility to have a position beyond that of Congress because no one held Dick Cheney to account for lying about weapons of mass destruction.’”
“My point is— now you’re describing a flawed democracy. The fact someone wasn’t held to account just means America didn’t want to hold him to account.”
“Who am I to��� that’s almost spookier— ‘Oh, I’m going to be the guy that holds Dick Cheney accountable.’ No.”
“There is a lot of power that rests with defense industry executives. That is WHY we need to stick to a position that this is in the hands of the people. It cannot be any other way.”
“Anyone who says a defense company should be going beyond the law and beyond what legislators and elected leaders say— you’re effectively saying you do not believe in this democratic experiment and that you want a corporatocracy.”
Via @nypost
I have a stupid question
If they do age verification on everyone, making it so only adults can only visit some websites, that pushes people under age to certain parts of the internet that don't require age verification.
... doesn't that make it easier for pedophiles ... ?
This gets to the core of the issue more than any debate about specific terms.
Do you believe in democracy? Should our military be regulated by our elected leaders, or corporate executives? Seemingly innocuous terms from the latter like "You cannot target innocent civilians" are actually moral minefields that lever differences of cultural tradition into massive control.
Who is a civilian and not? What makes them innocent or not? What does it mean for them to be a "target" vs collateral damage? Existing policy and law has very clear answers for these questions, but unelected corporations managing profits and PR will often have a very different answer.
Imagine if a missile company tried to enforce the above policy, that their product cannot be used to target innocent civilians, that they can shut off access if elected leaders decide to break those terms. Sounds, good, right? Not really - in addition to the value judgement problems I list above, you also have to account for questions like:
-What level of information, classified and otherwise, does the corporation receive that would allow them to make these determinations? How much leverage would they have to demand more?
-What if an elected President merely threatens a dictator with using our weapons in a certain way, ala Madman Theory/MAD? Is the threat seen as empty because the dictator knows the corporate executives will cut off the military? Is the threat enough to trigger the cutoff? How might either of those determinations vary if the current corporate executive happens to like the dictator or dislike the President?
-At what level of confidence does the cutoff trigger, both in writing and in reality?
The fact that this is a debate over AI does not change the underlying calculus. The same problems apply to definitions and use of ethically fraught but important capabilities like surveillance systems or autonomous weapons. It is easy to say "But they will have cutouts to operate with autonomous systems for defensive use!", but you immediately get into the same issues and more - what is autonomous? What is defensive? What about defending an asset during an offensive action, or parking a carrier group off the coast of a nation that considers us to be offensive?
At the end of the day, you have to believe that the American experiment is still ongoing, that people have the right to elect and unelect the authorities making these decisions, that our imperfect constitutional republic is still good enough to run a country without outsourcing the real levers of power to billionaires and corpos and their shadow advisors. I still believe.
And that is why "bro just agree the AI won't be involved in autonomous weapons or mass surveillance why can't you agree it is so simple please bro" is an untenable position that the United States cannot possibly accept.
I’ve been seeing a lot of people claiming, very angrily, that AI systems don’t actually do anything useful, don’t improve your productivity, are useless, and that everyone who claims that they are getting work done with them is wrong.
Well, you can say that all you like, shake your fist at the heavens, preach on the street corners how AI is worthless and AI companies are all going to go bankrupt, but the thing is, the people who are getting work done, well, you’re not going to convince them that they’re not getting work done. No one is going to believe you that the power nailer they have doesn’t, in fact, pound in nails when they’re using it for that all day long week after week.
After a while, they’re just going to perceive you as crazy, and most of what you’re saying is going to register as background noise, not much different from the person yelling on the street that aliens have been reading his mind.
You cannot actually convince people that a tool they use all day long and does incredible amounts of work for them doesn’t do anything. It isn’t a thing you can succeed at. You can try of course. No one can stop you. But after a while, please be prepared to be given funny looks.
This tweet incorrectly ends with:
"If that matters to you, get a VPN. And then they'll only know that you're using a VPN."
It needs to be the following instead;
"If that matters to you, get a VPN. And then only the VPN company will know those things, plus now tied to your identity."
I've been wanting to write this for a long time, I think now is the time.
Empathy is a virtue... and it is being weaponized against those of us who truly and honestly care.
It's insidious. By design.
Here's how it works on so many... including me, for so long. 🧵