Thread

OpenAI bots meddled with multiple US Government agency sites

132 points · 196 comments · Betelbuddy

gizajob · 1790444203 · focus · HN ↗
Getting bored of these framings where the superintelligent sentient beings running freely inside OpenAI are doing things that the company has no control over. The headline should be:
OpenAI meddled with multiple US Government agency sites.
The bots are acting neither properly nor improperly, they’re acting as they’re being allowed or coordinated to act.
1. 20k · 1790447376 · focus · HN ↗
  Yep. You have to ask - why did OpenAI allow these bots unrestricted access to government sites? Why is security being done in seemingly such a haphazard way?
  It isn't difficult to block certain kinds of network traffic, eg restrict the kinds of requests the bots are able to make. They also mention that the bots used developer only tools - why were they even installed on the machines that the bots were running on? Why aren't they reviewing network traffic, to make sure that incidents aren't occurring?
  In this case, userdata was transferred to third parties by the bots - why do they have the ability to pass data to a third party? It is not complex to prevent this
  This is literally the most basic kind of sandboxing and security, and the fact that OpenAI isn't doing it is clearly intentional. It is quite literally not believable that this hasn't been brought up internally as a problem
  >"We have yet to understand the extent of existing incidents, and future rogue AI scenarios could be catastrophic," Krueger said.
  This is why it smells like marketing, every time one of these incidents happens it reinforces the false notion that AI is sentient or acting on its own. Its intentional negligence by the AI companies to make the models seem more capable than they are to make line go up
  1. 0xDEAFBEAD · 1790449828 · focus · HN ↗
    >line go up
    It's already going up at staggering rate. Anthropic is now at $100B in annualized revenue, up 50% in the past two months.
    * * *
    Here's a little allegory for how I'm thinking about this discourse.
    Imagine a man who is raising tiger cubs in his backyard. They're growing fast. He keeps them on dog leashes so they stay under control. One day, a growing cub breaks its leash and goes on a rampage through the neighborhood, eating a beloved local pet.
    The neighborhood erupts into a big argument: Was the leash inappropriately thin? The neighbors point out that thicker leashes are easily available at the local pet store. Furthermore, is it appropriate to refer to the loose cub as a "wild animal" in local news reporting, or is it factually more accurate to call it "domesticated"?
    Meanwhile, the cubs grow larger and lick their lips, oblivious to the discussion.
    gizajob · 1790452194 · focus · HN ↗
    The city or his neighbours would be like “you can’t keep tigers in the backyard sir”.
    0xDEAFBEAD · 1790452508 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, that would be the common sense response from my perspective: <a href="https://pauseai.info/" rel="nofollow">https://pauseai.info/
    gizajob · 1790452816 · focus · HN ↗
    It’s my common sense response to tigers. My thoughts about AI are varied and many yet lean towards the skeptical.
    4d4m · 1790455762 · focus · HN ↗
    There is no reason to pause any AI development. Quite honestly there is very little appetite to be left last.
    However, there is a reasonable ask from the public to hold real people accountable for actions downstream of the software allowed to carry out intendended and unintended actions that may not be allowed depending on jurisdictions laws.
    Eg in a hypothetical armed convenience store theft: We don't prosecute the gun manufacturer, we prosecute the individual using the weapon for crime. Same deal here.
    0xDEAFBEAD · 1790456634 · focus · HN ↗
    >There is no reason to pause any AI development. Quite honestly there is very little appetite to be left last.
    "According to survey results released on Wednesday, 68% of [likely US voters] said they would support the proposal to temporarily pause advanced AI development and permanently prohibit the development of superintelligent programs, while just 25% said they’d oppose it."
    <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-casar-ai-bill-poll" rel="nofollow">https://www.commondreams.org/news/sanders-casar-ai-bill-poll
    >Eg in a hypothetical armed convenience store theft: We don't prosecute the gun manufacturer, we prosecute the individual using the weapon for crime. Same deal here.
    So if I ask ChatGPT to make me some paperclips, and it replaces all the matter in a nearby city with paperclips, who gets prosecuted: me, or OpenAI?
    4d4m · 1790457166 · focus · HN ↗
    In this stretch of a hypothetical, you the user
    0xDEAFBEAD · 1790457380 · focus · HN ↗
    Well in that case, OpenAI has reduced incentive to solve the alignment problem, since it won't suffer liability from alignment failures.
    morpheos137 · 1790472115 · focus · HN ↗
    Also the policy makers that made infrastructure and laws susceptible to automated manipulation which decidedly is not the case today. For example LLMs are not able to manipulate the power grid because they are not exposed to the control interfaces..no matter how intelligent llms get their physical levers do not extend unless people decide to let them. The ai threat is real ridiculous.. yes you may ee ome uplift in bad actor. Like for example f someone wants to build a tank dozer in their garage and is not experienced welding ai might give some useful information as a book would in the past. However just like a book ai is bot going to build and operate it itself unless someone design and effective android robot. Once LLMs or other ai becomes an embodies agent then there may be a real threat if agency. Last time I checked ai can't drive a car but it can tell you to walk your car to a car wash.
    bwfan123 · 1790484028 · focus · HN ↗
    > The ai threat is real ridiculous
    It is an elaborate business ploy to create a regulatory framework for "safe-ai" that shields these companies from liability. This way, they can sell "safe-ai" to enterprises and if shit-hits-the-fan at the enterprise, sorry, this is certified "safe-ai" so, your bad. Shift blame to a regulatory body. From an enterprise buyer's perspective they can say, hey, I bought "safe-ai" and so dont fire me when it "rm -rfs" the production database. Still, beats me why they are painting their product in a negative light, and scaring their own enterprise customers. After this sort of marketing, any enterprise buyer would be scared to go anywhere near it.
    idiotsecant · 1790513068 · focus · HN ↗
    This policy only makes sense if legislative action is effective against orgs outside the US. Otherwise it's not even worthless, it's worse. It moved more development outside the grasp of regulation.
    TomGarden · 1790463468 · focus · HN ↗
    if these models will eventually be as powerful as projected, these models should not be likened to guns, but to nukes. Which yes, if you manufacture nukes, we prosecute you
    mrob · 1790677670 · focus · HN ↗
    The most commonly accepted expected death toll of global nuclear war is around 50% (mostly from disease and starvation in the ensuing collapse of civilization). That's much better than the expected outcome of recursively self-improving AI (100% dead).

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