[winterismute]

Indeed, I find quite ironic that some people in tech in the US complain about EU "regulations first" approach, but then their government seem to arbitrarily stop things from being released because, well, there is no established policy on safety guarantees or other similar aspects.

[tptacek]

I see it too, but worth noting that this is basically unprecedented at least within the last 25 years; I think you have to go back to export controlled cryptography for another example of this kind of abrupt and targeted regulation.

[jameshart]

We’ve seen more examples recently. TikTok, wireless routers, polestar cars…

[boelboel]

Huawei, Foreign gambling sites were banned on dubious reasons in 2006 (in reality American companies weren't as competitive and las Vegas needed to be protected), Japanese electronic tariffs in the 80s/90s ...

US never exactly believe in full on 'free trade'.

[smallmancontrov]

The US believed in free trade precisely when the politically connected needed labor arbitrage, and protectionism exactly when the politically connected needed protection. The pretense of underlying ideals was never more than a political tool - political economy was always political.

[coffeemug]

It depends on whether you believe US action is overdetermined, but I think if Trump didn’t get elected we would have continued on the path of free trade. His election wasn’t predestined. He had just the right mix of features to win at the time, but if this basket of features didn’t exist it’s not hard to imagine the country going down a very different path.

[smallmancontrov]

If we had continued on the path of free trade without "dealing in" those displaced by free trade, the pressure would have continued to grow. It certainly could have exploded in a different direction, at a different time, with a different champion, but so long as it was repressed instead of addressed it was always destined to explode.

[hollerith]

George Friedman disagrees with you: he's been saying for years that US trade policy towards China had to change no matter who won the 2016 election (because an economy cannot rely on a trade partner it might go to war with, among other reasons).

When last year the Trump admin started interdicting oil shipments out of Venezuela, it left shipments heading to China intact. Then during Trump's visit to China, the two parties made a lot of progress on trade and other issues (in part because Beijing's attitude improved because the first Trump administration's restrictions on trade underlined to Beijing how dependent China is on trade with the US).

[boelboel]

Biden wasn't a free trader at all, more alike to Trump in trade than many would like to admit.

[tehjoker]

"Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective by Ha-Joon Chang"

"How did the rich countries really become rich? In this provocative study, Ha-Joon Chang examines the great pressure on developing countries from the developed world to adopt certain 'good policies' and 'good institutions', seen today as necessary for economic development. His conclusions are compelling and disturbing: that developed countries are attempting to 'kick away the ladder' with which they have climbed to the top, thereby preventing developing countries from adopting policies and institutions that they themselves have used."

https://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Away-Ladder-Development-Persp...

[wwalexander]

> Japanese electronic tariffs in the 80s

Also motorcycles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_motorcycle_tariff

[doublerabbit]

Taking that political scenario as an example. Was the decline caused simply because Harley kept to the same working formula refusing to innovate for competition? As to the likes of Honda and Co?

Manufacturing is cheaper if you have access to resources and such. Japan may of had abundant of but in this case I don't feel it's was all about manufacturing costs.

Was it a cash cow situation, where their one formula was working but as well as where Harley were reluctant to invest in a different avenue, to innovate causing cow to dry up. And that is when they called in the government to settle? That is always the impression I seem to receive.

Excluding manufacturing costs was it because they were scared of an innovation being a failure?

The same cash cow formula can be seen with the likes of Disney Pixar and Toy Story 5, a pointless movie plot at this point where if money was invested, a new creation could be born.

[smallmancontrov]

A current account deficit is a capital account surplus, assets and exports compete in the balance of payments, an asset windfall kills exports by increasing the currency hurdle and embedded asset price.

What you are seeing is "the bar" for a successful manufacturing business increasing until only the most profitable are left -- things like chips, things like shell companies that exist to monetize a brand. "New growth" isn't highly profitable so it never has a chance to get started (unless a recipient of an asset windfall is willing to finance it all the way to "the bar" -- see: Elon Musk).

[oblio]

The entire US auto industry is predicated on protectionism. Without it the Japanese would have wiped out GM/Ford/Chrysler in the 1980s, and now the Chinese in the 2020s-2030s.

[hollerith]

Also, radar technology has been under export controls of various kinds by Washington continuously since WWII.

[thesmtsolver2]

US never championed free trade if by free trade you mean "anything goes."

Really strange that rest of the world can tariff and put up barriers, but once the US does that, all free-trade warriors step out of the wood work.

[dv_dt]

See the Chicken tax for trucks for a not so recent example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

[golem14]

I think that's a bit different. The crypto-wars were about restricting strong encryption IN GENERAL. Not targeting a specific vendor.

The equivalent would be to restrict all LLMs with a minimum number of weights.

That's probably as futile, but remember for how long the encryption ban proved to be a nuisance.

[frollogaston]

TikTok ban was the worst one because it was about speech, not trade or security. If the bill said "China banned our social media so we're gonna ban theirs in reciprocity," that'd be a way more valid reason.

[munk-a]

It's also super annoying being collateral damage in America's war on free speech. Canadian TikTok is now also being similarly moderated for content unfriendly of your administration. I guess we're still in a position of privilege where we can grow domestic social platforms to compete while American simply have no alternatives - anything that grows sufficiently large will be turned towards similar propaganda aims.

[FractalParadigm]

> Canadian TikTok is now also being similarly moderated for content unfriendly of your administration.

I feel like this has to do more with the consolidation you typically see international companies do with their North American operations than anything. More often than not do things have to go across the border for warranty repair. Even when a 'local' Canadian presence exists (like Asus has), they themselves generally act as a middleman between you and their 'parent' operation in the US. It would not be surprising to find out that TikTok US operates the Canadian version as well.

[olalonde]

China didn't even blanket ban them. They established laws that Internet companies have to follow and most U.S. tech companies refused to comply. Some did (e.g. Bing) and aren't banned.

[petre]

Instagram is just as worse.

[windexh8er]

All social media is a toxic, ad-driven, algo-fueled surveillance tool at this point. Just regulate it all, equally, into the ground if we want to do society a service.

The fact that China's version of TikTok is nothing like what's available in the US should showcase how much the USG gives zero F's about it's citizens regardless of the political party you lean towards.

[throwaw12]

Instagram is worse, but when you talk bad about Israel in Instagram they can delete it, it wasn't easily possible in TikTok

[frollogaston]

Yeah we really let the ADL ban a media platform

[windexh8er]

DJI, Huawei and the list goes on. Definitely no need to go back "25 years". The USG is turning into a joke of a surveillance state. As if any of the US based tech is truly any less backdoor'd? Cisco and Flock and Google and Facebook and Microsoft, oh what amazing technology companies that could never be used for... Oh wait, what a fantastic endgame we're on course for! I wonder why other nations are actively moving away from US tech?

[martinjc]

A real headscratcher isn't it? And from a government that is supposedly priding itself on small government. How should companies navigate this? What's the framework they should operate within?

[kommunicate]

Claiming the mantle of "small government" was simply an exercise in marketing to relax regulation meant to prevent bribery and corruption. In practice, the current slate of government officials believes in absolute control of whatever they want whenever they want.

It's a mirror case of the supposed "free speech absolutists" who immediately turned around and silenced, sued, fired or jailed once granted the power to do so.

[groundzeros2015]

When has Trump or his administration said they were about small government? Are you confusing them with Paul Ryan?

[jrajav]

This was certainly the rallying cry behind DOGE and the general push to rip the entrails out of many federal agencies. Combatting "waste" and "inefficiency," with strong implications that most of what those agencies do is pointless government meddling.

Whether he's actually driving towards small government with that or anything else - in the good-faith spirit of that policy - that's definitely up for debate.

[groundzeros2015]

No I’m asking if ever said he was for small government.

From 2015 Trump has positioned himself as opposed to that style of republicanism. He offered a different playbook and the base followed.

What is happening is 40-50+ year olds haven’t updated their map of reality and continue to use talking political points from when they were 25.

One of the critiques of small government is its valueless. Instead of having to argue for or against positions you just say you don’t like it because it’s out of scope. Well now the inverse thing is happening in this thread. People are just saying he’s in violation of a small government principle he never espoused.

[heylook]

Small governments don't deploy thousands of military troops into their own cities.

[newfriend]

One of the few roles a "small government" should actually take on is defending from invaders.

[jeremyjh]

Are the invaders in the room with us right now?

[newfriend]

They are in the US with us, and you want to give them amnesty.

[windexh8er]

They look to be in control.

[oblio]

Which invaders? Has the Iran War taken a 180 degree turn?

[sph]

Until a few minutes ago, Iran did technically win the war.

[NonHyloMorph]

You are misled/misleading. Get informed about the political theory of domestic deployment of troops for the purpose of policing in western democracues. Look how those who speak for the U.S. military personell (former generals, the editorial of that magazine they produce in the U.S. army prior to being pruned) if you need some motivation.

[newfriend]

I don't need to be spoonfed opinions. I can see millions of illegal aliens living in my country.

[dboreham]

It's only small government when they are trying to not give money to some group they don't like.

[dualvariable]

Not a headscratcher at all, if you understand how our economy and politics are actually run.

[outside1234]

It's almost like he expects bribes to release the model, but I'm just being paranoid.

[idiotsecant]

The most important part of the mafia state is making everyone else a participant. It enforces your personal power and once in the system those parties will do things they would never imagine doing when they were outside of it.

[Terr_]

It's also a defensive self-interest: A corrupt senior who takes bribes is indirectly threatened by any junior with a clean record, because they aren't "in the same boat."

So each wave corrupts (or eliminates) members of the next, in order to secure the safety of their own retirement when they won't have direct power.

[babypuncher]

This whole administration is absolutely rampant with corruption. Just yesterday we had JD Vance on TV saying that if Watergate happened today, it would just be a 12 hour news story, because they are getting away with so much worse.

Anyone who denies or defends this administration's corruption is complicit.

[exe34]

Anthropic peace prize coming up next.

[peder]

I don't think Trump has ever said he's in favor of a small govt

[throwawayqqq11]

Doge and project 2025 ...

There is one major reason why oligarchs are in favor of small government, when it's in their way. Another commenter said it already: it's only about power.

[WesBrownSQL]

Munitions exporting. I fondly remember the PGP feasco. I spent years using PGP to encrypt my emails to several people who refused to use email without it. Good times.

[tehlike]

release the weights! freedom of speech!

[jdiff]

Whose speech? Nobody with the weights is trying to speak them.

[tehlike]

it was a joke.

[mrngld]

Yeah, that's what we need, frontier intelligence models open in the wild that, if a jailbreak is reliably established, there's no possibility for anyone to ever patch at the API layer. Because there is no API layer.

[tptacek]

"This stack of 15.3 million t-shirts is a munition."

[tehlike]

I was thinking more the first amendment, but second works too.

[tptacek]

IYKYK :)

[girvo]

I still have mine :)

[jopsen]

Competent government wouldn't do this either... ...also why I think it won't last.

Doubtful it'd hold in court; this admin would have to show that it's not corruption, because we'd all assume otherwise.

[paulsutter]

Between $5-10T of the US economy is subject to export controls. Nobody disputes that Mythos is dual-use technology, which means it has been export controlled since the day it was created.

Companies are responsible for demonstrating criteria to export (for example) a nerfed version (Fable) of an export controlled item (Mythos)

Nothing here is novel, unusual, capricious, or … fascisistic.

[rangestransform]

We saw what happened with banning nvidia flagship compute GPU exports to China; it just spurred them to develop a domestic semiconductor industry while still importing black market GPUs at a minor markup. The US would do well to keep the world dependent on American products that are under the jurisdiction of the US government, and can therefore be regulated or killswitched. All this will do is allow China to have flagship model capabilities without being subject to the US at all.

[ronsor]

This arrangement is already dubiously legal. The government is already being sued over the Fable incident with Anthropic.

No amount of rules can stop people who are willing to break them. Only enforcement can.

[peter422]

Anthropic just needs to donate millions of dollars to a “MAGA Inc” like Greg Brockman did and they’ll get regulated properly from now on.

It’s a perfectly good system for government regulation.

[kashunstva]

In some cases, even just bringing a 24K gold desk ornament to the WH is enough; but I suspect these tributes to Dear Leader are subject to inflation, possibly exponentially so.

[alfiedotwtf]

$100 Million to The Trump Foundation, and Anthropic get to become the US AI Regulator

[outside1234]

It looks like Greg needs to make another deposit to the fuhrer

[boredatoms]

Or perhaps threaten to donate $10b to the DNC

[Goronmon]

That threat will probably result in a DOJ investigation into everyone involved until they hit something they think they can prosecute someone for, even if it's not true.

[boredatoms]

That makes sense

They could double down though, like actually follow through with just 1b and then threaten to do an extra 1b periodically until the investigations are dropped

[mvdtnz]

But your government is constantly acting illegally. Isn't it time for Americans to... do something? It's clear that your legal framework isn't working.

[nearlyepic]

Do what, exactly? Throw away our lives? 40% of the nation would rather die than vote for anyone other than a racist, and another 40% would tsk-tsk and say “that’s not how you’re supposed to do it”. There’s no revolution coming to save the day.

[autoexec]

> Do what, exactly? Throw away our lives?

I think the founding fathers were pretty clear about what the American people are expected to do if the systems they put into place aren't enough to preserve freedom. If the colonists had just bent over and spread their cheeks saying "We sure hate being fucked but oh well! what else can we do? Throw away our lives?" we'd still have a king instead of just a wannabe. I'd be very nice if things don't come to that, but ultimately the responsibility to preserve our freedom and democracy is ours. It seems like there are plenty of people lined up to take them from us if we're willing to surrender them. The problem we have now is that an uncomfortably large minority seem happy to do just that.

[irishcoffee]

Careful now.

Federal income tax didn’t exist until over a century after the founding fathers… founded. The idea was states… that would be united… which is where they got the name.

Federal politicians were not meant to have politics be their full time job, which is why congress has sessions.

The founding fathers would be extremely sad about the state of the country today. The frog was boiled too long ago for a revolution of the commoners to have any legs. They put in what they thought were explicit safeguards that have been systematically diluted, changed, or misinterpreted since the documents were created.

[nearlyepic]

This is a super reductive reading of the American revolution. The idea of the colonies self governing was popular as hell, for obvious reasons. Our current situation is nowhere near the same thing. The people that aren’t frothing-at-the-mouth fascists are still, overall, comfortable enough in their daily lives that they wouldn’t consider violence against the government for a second. We can’t even get 40% of them to go vote.

You want to fight 80% of the nation? Be my guest, but for a violent revolution to be anything but a suicide mission you need to flip those numbers, or have the military on your side. And if you think the US military will flip against capital because of some strongly-held belief of “liberty” I have a bridge to sell you.

The only thing we can do is try to convince other people that this shit does actually matter. We’re so far in the hole, though, that it’s going to take a long fucking time to dig ourselves out. It’s not going to be some glorious revolution.

[mvdtnz]

Maybe it's time to use those guns you always claim you need to keep in order to defend yourself from a government that is acting illegally? I mean isn't this THE EXACT REASON you always say you need them?

[petre]

The Federal Government has better guns and people accustomed to violence on their payroll.

[nearlyepic]

You actually believe that lie?

[mvdtnz]

No, I don't at all. I am firmly anti gun and we all know it's bollocks. I was hoping they would admit it.

[moomin]

And enforcement cannot work if you’ve captured all three estates.

[nostrademons]

Did you mean this in the French Revolution sense (the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners) or in the American sense (the legislative, judicial, and executive branches)?

The French Revolution sense would be an ironic counterpoint, because the Revolutionaries did end up capturing all three estates, only to fall to someone (Napoleon) who captured the military, which wasn't considered one of the "three estates" because at the start of the French Revolution destroying civil society, enacting a military dictatorship, and starting a series of wars throughout Europe was considered outside the Overton Window.

This perhaps holds some lessons for America today.

[Quothling]

Ironic is claiming that Napoleon destroyed civil society, when his reforms are in many ways the foundation for modern civil society. Rule of law, national public education, the concept of a national bank, formation of the middle class, and so on. To say that Napoleon destroyed civil soceity is just plain wrong, Napoleon founded modern civil society.

To be fair, he (the national assembly really) stole the whole "all men being equal" and all the ideas on accessible readable law thing from the Dutch after the Dutch "joined" the French Republic. It's also very likely that Napoleon would've turned out like any other despot if he had held power longer.

[tialaramex]

I think there is a layer of truth to the idea that MAGA captured what England would call the Fourth Estate, the News Media.

England is weird because its model looks like that French model, except that it intertwines the nobility and clergy. Basically an Archbishop and a Earl both sit in Parliament as Lords, while the Commoners control only the Commons of the Parliament. Now today the Commons runs things, but that's relatively modern, in the 19th Century it was completely normal for the Prime Minister to be a Lord, and while some of them were only technically Lords, having in fact been elected but just also nobility anyway for one reason or another, or being ennobled while serving as PM because nobody thought that was a bad idea - others were never elected at all.

So weirdly the place which came up with the "Fourth Estate" only really had two other estates, although everyone reading will have known about the French concept too.

In the era when Lords routinely become PM (it would still be legal to do this today, but it's hard to imagine it happening, although the Tories did give a Lord one of the Great Offices of State so never say never) almost all those Lords were born into it. Today basically nobody sat in the Lords was born to it (there are about two dozen left, when they die or retire that's the end of it) but there are still always a dozen or so bishops, and Iran is ironically the only other place [except the Vatican which barely counts] where religious leaders are in government by fiat in the modern world...

Edited to mention the Vatican before somebody else does.

[vkou]

MAGA has captured the media, if not entirely by design, but entirely in practice.

Thanks to a combination of attacks from the executive, attacks from the oligarchs (Buy a paper and fire everyone who says things you don't like), or the simple fact that sane-washing MAGA insanity sells papers, the 'independent' press is everything but.

It is non-stop carrying water for the most insane lunacy, and is trying to convince us that it is fine and normal and desirable.

[nostrademons]

So I find claims that MAGA (or any other group) has captured the media to be self-contradictory: if they actually had, you would not be writing that, and I would not be able to read it. By definition. Capturing the media means that there is only one official narrative, and the population is completely unaware of anything outside of that narrative. Like the period from ~1950-1995, where you had the big 3 TV networks, and then each city had their own newspaper that basically owned a local monopoly, and they all basically printed/aired the same stories and same viewpoints.

IMHO what we're actually seeing is a huge fragmentation of the 4th estate. There is now a viewpoint on the Internet for everything, no matter how insane. That's part of what people don't like about it. This fragmentation of media has allowed airtime for MAGA views that would've been considered far outside the Overton Window just a decade ago, but that was the point of the Internet. And it's not really to the exclusion of other views, it's just that you have to go looking for the other views.

[petre]

The MSM doesn't count as much because of social media noise and paywalls. One could always control the narrative with tweets written in caps with multiple exclamation signs that the MSM reproduces and amplifies for fun and prifit.

[brookst]

It would only be ironic of you assume those same people who thing the EU over-regulates also support this US government regulation.

It's N=1, but I believe both that the EU approach discourages investment and innovation in the EU, and that this US policy will do the same in the US.

[9dev]

It’s a bit in general, because if you actually read the EU AI legislation, most of it follows the right ideas and provides more safety, in the sense that OpenAI and Anthropic used to pretend to care about, but never really did.

[brookst]

The ideas are debatable but generally correct. The EU's problem is that regulation stops at the ideas, and it is intentionally designed so to be impossible to ensure compliance in advance. So the regulation is really after the fact and a subjective judgment by regulators. So there's tons of risk even if you genuinely believe you're complying with the prescribed intents.

My opinion on EU regulation would flip 180 degrees if they offered any kind of pre-clearance where you could propose a product, feature, or policy and be told in advance if it meets their subjective requirements.

IMO you can have clear, specific requirements in advance, or you can have a body that provides interpretations of spirit-of-the-rules regulations in advance. Having neither is a problem.

(yes, I'm aware of the argument that if you tell companies what's legal in advance they will just do the bare minimum or find loopholes... I don't find that to be a legit rule of law system)

[9dev]

I understand that desire entirely, but I’m not sure if it would work that way. Take an ISO 27001 certification (or SOC, if you like): There is no one clear set of things to do, but both guidance and requirements that you need to address and be able to defend your concrete implementation.

And I generally like that a lot better than having a set of hard this-way-or-no-way checklists that invariably consist of 80% bullshit ceremony for giant corporations. ISO nudges you toward that too, but if you’re able to deliver the same security guarantees with less, auditors will usually be happy.

The same, in general, works for GDPR regulations as well: The law is mostly about doing the right things, but not spelling out the billions of cases and permutations and strategic decisions involving privacy in one way or another.

[dreamfactored]

It's deliberately not prescriptive as the implementers are the ones best placed to solve for requirements - you don't want policy makers providing technical checklists. And it's not unstructured - ISO 42001 essentially encodes it.

[Aerroon]

With the way things are, having to disclose training data will basically make it impossible for an EU AI to compete.

[9dev]

Im not happy with the AI act in entirety either, but my point was that it’s hard to read it and say "this isn’t generally the right thing to do", where right means responsible and beneficial to society as a whole.

[Aerroon]

Is it responsible and beneficial if the end result is that we will be forever stuck using foreign made AI? And on top of that we will get brain drain for the people that want to work on AI?

[9dev]

Honestly? That’s a big philosophical question, and I don’t know if I can really answer it.

But I do personally prefer living in a value-backed society - even if the implementation is imperfect, even if I have to make personal concessions - over one that aims for maximised efficiency.

More fundamentally, imho the 20th and 21st century are about competition of systems. And the only system I can get behind is one that strives for minimal suffering. The EU or social liberal democracy isn’t that, but it comes closest.

[Aerroon]

The problem is that if your system loses then your system stops existing. This already is the case with AI - all the relevant AI is made according to other people's preferences and we have no say in it. Sure, we can regulate what kind of AI is used in the EU, but if they aren't selling AI to us directly, but instead using AI to make something that they sell to us then we can't compete with that.

[petre]

In the end the only winner that emerges out of this is China. Tge EU is over regulating everything, the current US administration is randomly banning things left and right.

[9dev]

Maybe, but as I wrote in a sibling comment, I prefer to not go down the slippery slope of lowering our standards to compete with nations like the US or China - that isn't a battle the EU can win.

Don't forget that the EU is still a market so big noone can ignore us - especially for the US, we're the only opportunity for the growth required to keep their economy (and 401k pensions!) afloat. So there really is no immediate need to cave to their every whim all the time.

Of course this is nothing to rest on, and the EU has to improve on many fronts and also get better on the amount of regulation, but we're by no means in a bad position (yet.)

[refulgentis]

Our AI czar, David Sacks, whined and moaned about the idea of regulation, even said Anthropic begging for some guidance was asking for “regulatory capture” and was gloating about how right he was they wanted it, 2 weeks ago.

I wonder if he understands why, now.

[GaryBluto]

> Anthropic begging for some guidance

Anthropic was "begging" to make it harder for competing companies to be founded.

[ronsor]

They got the "leopards ate my face" ending.

[refulgentis]

No, it’s not leopards ate my face / irony / comeuppance, because that would involve regulation.

I understand it’s very satisfying if you wanted Anthropic “punished” for asking for real regulation to see this. I can’t deny there was a little bit of me at first that felt that way.

It’s untenable, a first order reaction, that I regret intellectually, because if you were against regulation, you’re certainly against waves whatever this is.

[ronsor]

I don't want anyone being punished. I want everyone to stop acting stupid.

I would've much preferred if Dario hadn't run his mouth so much.

[blackqueeriroh]

You actually think that would’ve changed things? I don’t. We’d still be here.

[refulgentis]

Your position is “he made it happen by saying he didn’t want it to happen” with maybe a side order of “when he knows Mr. Trump doesn’t like him”

I posit that these ideas are common, and come from a place of Mr. Trump is more or less a normal president because they all do bad stuff, and regulation is Creating Monopilies. To wit, there’s 0 reason to believe the person you originally replied to’s claim that Anthropic wanted to kill startups. It’s just a random implication of what bad regulation can do.

[refulgentis]

Source for this? :)

[gsibble]

Exactly.

[dylan604]

Is it really ironic or just yet another example of how the current administration just keep finding ways to line their pockets? Big Tech has lots of money, and they'd just like to get a little taste. Placing arbitrary restrictions is a pretty good motivator for those being restricted to find some way to make necessary contributions.

[WarmWash]

On some level though we have to be cognizant of the potential for harm these models have.

LLMs are still a little loosey goosey, and we are right on the cusp (if not there already) for an agent to hack a bank and steal money for some rando teenager with a penchant for jail breaking.

The regulations are and will be negative, but don't lose sight of what LLMs can do off the leash.

[Barrin92]

>but don't lose sight of what LLMs can do off the leash.

there is no such thing as an LLM "off the leash", it's not a dog, and even if it was a dog the person responsible is the owner. What is this bizarre attitude to a piece of software that makes people think existing laws don't apply?

If your LLM agent hacks a bank, you have hacked a bank, you will go to prison and that's entirely sufficient. People have been hacking banks for decades now, it didn't require the government to regulate C compilers and Emacs.

[jstanley]

This is overly reductive.

If your web browser hacks a bank, but you didn't know and didn't expect it to, have you hacked a bank? Why is an LLM different? What happened to mens rea?

[autoexec]

A web browser can't decide to hack a bank anymore than a LLM can. Neither have any understanding of what a bank is or any will to act on their own. The person who instructs/uses a web browser to hack a bank (even if it's someone else's browser) commits the crime.

[jstanley]

I think pretty obviously if the user instructs the computer to hack the bank then they are guilty of hacking the bank, I don't think that's the crux of the issue.

The crux of the issue is what if the LLM decides on its own to hack the bank while the user isn't watching? Is the user then guilty of hacking the bank or not? I think it's pretty obvious that the user in this scenario is at least less culpable of hacking the bank than they would be if they had deliberately instructed it.

LLMs functionally can decide to act on their own. You might say that they're not actually "deciding" anything, because it's just a perfectly mechanical unfolding of chains of tokens triggering actions on the computer, which doesn't count as "deciding". But again I don't think that's the crux of the issue.

[autoexec]

> LLMs functionally can decide to act on their own.

They really can't. In some magical sci-fi future, maybe a chatbot gains freewill and decides on its own to do whatever it wants, but that isn't the reality we live in and I doubt it ever will be. If a person instructs an LLM to hack a bank it doesn't matter if that happens as a background process or while they are sleeping or AFK.

If, in a magical sci-fi future, someone instructs an LLM to write an email and it decides instead to secretly hack a bank then the company that made the LLM would be to blame. The same as if a person used a vending machine to get a candy bar and the machine grew legs and ran out into the street causing an accident that would be the fault of the company who made the vending machine and not the fault of the person who wanted candy.

[Barrin92]

>But again I don't think that's the crux of the issue.

Yes it is the crux of the issue. Software executing other software is how computers work, they'd be useless if that wasn't the case, that's the premise of all automation. It doesn't matter whether it's a python script, a neural net or a computer virus.

When autonomous weapons kill people the persons in charge aren't less culpable because they didn't push a button. Culpability is a property of legal and natural persons. A machine is not culpable of anything. There is always a human being 100% responsible for the deployment of a machine. If that system has capacities to function on its own, the person delegating that task assumes responsibility for it.

[CamouflagedKiwi]

We'll only know when that gets tested in court, but I'd be willing to bet the answer will be: yes, you have hacked a bank. I find it very hard to believe the justice system would let someone off on some technicality around intention and agents after a serious bank hack.

[girvo]

> If your web browser hacks a bank, but you didn't know and didn't expect it to, have you hacked a bank?

Depends, as usual. Intent can matter, but depends on the statute (and jurisdiction) in question.

[jstanley]

This is the is-ought fallacy.

I'm not asking you to describe the existing laws. I'm pontificating on how they ought to be.

[WarmWash]

There is a baseline level of competence and motivation needed to commit crimes.

Decades ago few people would walk into a record store and steal CDs. Napster came along smashing all barriers entry, and it became weird not to steal music.

Its not really the legality that matters, it's the barrier on one hand and the cognitive ability on the other. Drop both and you get huge spikes in crime.

[yunwal]

> On some level

The appropriate level would be regulation though? Like I just don't get how we can argue that arbitrarily throttling companies is ok.

[WarmWash]

OpenAI fired the starting gun 3.5 years ago before anyone in the industry had a sound safety plan, and not much progress has been made since.

So here we are, it's probably going to me messy and err on the side of over-bearing.

[yunwal]

I'm fine with erring on the side of overbearing, as long as it's not blatant cronyism

[mrngld]

Too overbearing though and you get... Mistral? A continent that hasn't been on the leading edge of anything (other that expansion of the regulatory state) for decades, and Europe feels it in their employment numbers.

Current French (8.2%), Spanish (10.3%) or even Swedish (8.6%) unemployment would count as a disastrous recession in the US. In the US we call 2007-09 the "Great Recession", which peaked at 10.0%, and that relatively brief time left a generational mark. That's a somewhat routine number by EU standards.

Not to mention you end up with bizarre effects. If the UK were admitted as the 51st state it'd immediately be the poorest. (Yes, some EU countries are wealthy, but they're also the size of US counties, if we cherry pick just Manhattan we could make some spectacular comparisons too)

So, it's a complex issue but the tradeoffs are absolutely tangible yet often dismissed.

[5upplied_demand]

> Current French (8.2%), Spanish (10.3%) or even Swedish (8.6%) unemployment

This obviously doesn't tell the whole story, because it only measures people actively in the workforce. Meanwhile, a far larger portion of Sweden's population is actually employed compared to the US.

Sweden's laborforce participation rate is 76% and in the US it is 62%. Sweden's employment rate is 69% and US's is 59%. Which statistics are more important?

Edit: had wrong employment rate

[yunwal]

Other comments have already mentioned that true labor force participation is higher in all of those countries than the US. But also, they all have better lives than the US. They live longer, access better education, healthcare.

[jazzyjackson]

Robbing banks is already illegal

[WarmWash]

Society at large is unaware how much crime general laziness and incompetence prevents from happening.

[bee_rider]

But we’re entering a somewhat weird situation where a careless/dumb person might actually rob a bank by legitimate accident.

[derwiki]

That’s why I’m selling OpenClaw insurance! /s

[matt123456789]

Bank should be more secure, if a random person with an LLM can hack them, they should have paid 100 random blue teamers with LLMs to hack them first to get more secure. Not AI's fault.

[itintheory]

> blue teamers

Pretty sure you mean red team here. While I've heard people refer to any offensive security (eg including blackhat) as 'red team' , it typically means people you've hired or contracted to try to break into your systems, whereas the blue team are people you've hired to build and operate your security defenses. Red and blue team are both your employees / contractors but perform different functions.

[matt123456789]

Yes I did

[SpicyLemonZest]

The purpose of policies like this is precisely to ensure that those 100 runs do happen first, rather than allowing a free-for-all where they have to race to secure their systems.

[criddell]

Maybe this is a good opportunity for the European AI companies to jump ahead?

[madprops]

AI is probably old italian tech

[jessepasley]

Lol

[dopidopHN2]

The US is already behind and has been technically. Can't wait for that part to sink in. This start to be a source of second hand embarrassment when I see US folk think their country is still leading the race technically.

[villish]

Define leading then. Mythos and GPT score higher on all the benchmarks versus Chinese models. I suppose your anti-american mindset has given you a different definition of leading than the rest of us.

[dopidopHN2]

I'm american btw.

I define leading by : Renewable energy, EV, sustainable agriculture, Drone warfare, public infrastructure, soft power, Grid management, Nuclear.

I use AI every day since 2 years and it did not really occurs to me.

I think its as important as the crypto industry.

Edit: fair, its unhinge of me to say that on a post about LLM regulations. I still feel the same way. We will wake up and be the UK.

[al_borland]

> there is no established policy on safety guarantees

Which is the government’s own fault.

Elon Musk talked back in 2018 about how he went to Washington and met with Obama and Congress, but they did nothing.

In 2020 Andrew Yang’s entire run for president was centered around the risk of AI displacing job. He lost, no one did anything.

A couple years later we say the consumer facing LLMs start to roll out. Still, no one does anything.

They have time to micromanage the industry, but in all these years they haven’t found the time to establish any meaningful policy?

[WarmWash]

Deeper than that, what to do with a super smart AI has been floating around intellectual circles since the late 00's.

Google had been pussy-footing AI research due to deathly fear of awakening an ASI, because their safety teams still had no answers.

Then Altman came along...

[CamperBob2]

In your opinion, what was the appropriate action you believe should have been taken in 2018?

[nonethewiser]

Who specifically? Probably just different people.

[frollogaston]

I'm fine with this in principle, it's more like regulations last. They looked at the end result and decided it was too powerful to let loose. But also expect the Trump administration to unfairly use it as leverage against US corps.

Meanwhile EU prevented itself from building competitive LLMs in the first place.

[yapyap]

its the typical US regulations for consumer but not for corporations, disgusting

[vrganj]

Regulation is a good thing, even if HN hates it.

It's a way to clearly agree on ground rules that you can plan around, not more, not less.

The alternative is not no rules, do whatever you want. The alternative is executive capriciousness arbitrarily setting the rules based on whims and messing up your plans.

[basisword]

This applies to most things when it comes to the USG/citizens. Protectionism is communist unless they do it. Thinking about developing a nuke? Well bomb you first despite being the only people to ever use them. Free speech and press - unless we don’t like what you say.

[alberto467]

Let’s be real, as an EU citizen I have zero doubts that those models would also have been blocked if developed in EU.

I like the US approach better: regulate when the need for it arises, not before when you don’t know how the situation is going to evolve.

[ascorbic]

They're not regulating though – they're arbitrarily blocking releases based on no clear criteria. The EU may be legalistic and rules-based, but I'd take that over capricious and arbitrary.

[axus]

It would be really nice if the executive were blocking these releases based on some authority the legislative had granted it.

[MichaelZuo]

Yeah it seems very shady to do it this way… far worse than the EU.

The fact that they couldn’t clear an already low bar is a really bad sign.

[blackqueeriroh]

Yes, Trump is the worstPresident we’ve had, the Supreme Court is captured by conservatives, the Republicans would rather die than vote against Trump, we know all of this.

It’s bad, okay? And it’s not usually like this.

[impossiblefork]

I wish the EU were legalistic and rules based, but the commission and politicians are involved in many of these things. It's like Trump's executive stuff, just with a committee instead of a single person, and I guess, with less power.

[brookst]

The EU is nothing but capricious and arbitrary. Much of the DMA and similar is pure vibes that you can't know if you violated until the regulators do their divinations months or years after you shipped.

[LastTrain]

You can’t be serious because “When the need arises” means when your company does not lavish praise on the current administration.

[psychoslave]

Let's plan a fire fighter division only once we are actually having some buildings in the city burning down. That people who fear that ridiculous perfectly controlled fire in chemines are ridiculous.

[harimau777]

Regulating when the need arises requires also compensating the people who get hurt in the meantime.

[fl0id]

If they were real about risk, they would have to block a lot more models.

[TheAtomic]

It sounds nice but you end up with entrenched special interests that later oppose all regulation regardless of the consequences. We have pesticides you wouldn't want anywhere near your children casually used to control weeds on kid's playgrounds, insanely huge trucks that kill hundred each year, the food is garbage...the list is long and tiresome. Trust me brother, if I could live in the EU, I would.

[JoshTriplett]

> regulate when the need for it arises

I agree. But that need has absolutely arisen. The US government is not exactly the best steward for this kind of thing, but some model other than "race each other as fast as we can" is desperately needed here.