AI's future in California hangs in the balance.
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024
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Isn't California the Capitol of the world? ;-)
I really don't think that the AI guys want to be anywhere else.
If it were a country, it would be the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world. Not debating; just saying it can have a big impact.
It's also somewhat unique as a state (maybe?) in that it has a ton of corporate exports (namely, tech), as well as gigantic agricultural output. Illinois comes to mind as a similar situation. Contrast to Alaska (oil) or NY (NYC finance/corporate).
If California passes major restrictions on AI training then I think AI guys would very much want to be anywhere else.
There are already plenty of places to go. Major centers of AI activity include the UK, France, Israel, China and Canada. Many of the top AI companies aren't headquartered in California even if they're US-based.
SB 1047 is a California state bill that would make large AI model providers – such as Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Mistral – liable for the potentially catastrophic dangers of their AI systems.
Now this sounds like a complicated debate - but it seems to me like everyone against this bill are people who would benefit monetarily from not having to deal with the safety aspect of AI, and that does sound suspicious to me.
Another technical piece of this bill relates to open-source AI models. [...] There’s a caveat that if a developer spends more than 25% of the cost to train Llama 3 on fine-tuning, that developer is now responsible. That said, opponents of the bill still find this unfair and not the right approach.
In regards to the open source models, while it makes sense that if a developer takes the model and does a significant portion of the fine tuning, they should be liable for the result of that...
But should the main developer still be liable if a bad actor does less than 25% fine tuning and uses exploits in the base model?
One could argue that developers should be trying to examine their black-boxes for vunerabilities, rather than shrugging and saying it can't be done then demanding they not be held liable.
In regards to the open source models, while it makes sense that if a developer takes the model and does a significant portion of the fine tuning, they should be liable for the result of that...
This kind of goes against the model that open source has operated on for a long time, as providing source doesn't represent liability. So providing a fine-tuned model shouldn't either.
So providing a fine-tuned model shouldn't either.
I didn't mean in terms of providing. I meant that if someone provided a base model, someone took that and but on of it, then used it for a harmful purpose - of course the person modified it should be liable, not the base provider.
It's like if someone took a version of Linux, modified it, then used that modified version for a similar person - you wouldn't go after the person who made the unmodified version.
You wouldn't necessarily punish the person that modified Linux either, you'd punish the person that uses it for a nefarious purpose.
Important distinction is the intention to deceive, not that the code/model was modified to be able to be used for nefarious purposes.
America: gun shops and manufacturers are shielded from lawsuits. Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Also America: someone might learn how to make a bomb from an AI instead of learning it in the many many other places. Better sue.
Inconsistent. I can't sue because my kids school have to have a constant police presence.
Still. I think putting the brakes on “AI” is the right move right now. With its energy usage, intellectual property theft, nonconsensual (and underage) porn generating…not to mention its use by the ownership class to take and commodify human expression away from humans and the capitalist motive to profit over any consideration for the ramifications for the working class…I think halting this until we can get some protections in place for those this tech seems determined to exploit is a good thing.
Not that any of those problems will be solved even if we did hit the brakes. But, theoretically, yeah. I’m about it. Because, true to capitalist form, we are worsening the problems we haven’t even started trying to solve.
intellectual property theft
It's exactly like banks or huge companies: steal one movie, and you go to jail and pay a big fine. Steal all the movies, and suddenly it's not a problem anymore.
think putting the brakes on “AI” is the right move right now.
Strong disagree. I won't accept any solution that step 1 is willful ignorance. You might be willing to stick your head in the sand because the world keeps moving, I am not.
With its energy usage, intellectual property theft, nonconsensual (and underage) porn generating…not to mention its use by the ownership class to take and commodify human expression away from humans and the capitalist motive to profit over any consideration for the ramifications for the working class…I
I always know when someone doesn't have a good argument when they give me a dozen bad ones. 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 .... Still equals 0. No matter how many times you do it.
This comment is decrying it's parent, but it doesn't say anything to refute the points made. Energy use, intellectual property theft, and non-consensual porn seem like pretty decent things to be worried about.
Fine whatever deal with these "points"
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Energy: renewables, nuclear, carbon tax, incentives for companies to generate their own power
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Intellectual property theft: abolish copyright law. Whatever value it might (I said might) have served is gone now. It should sicken us all to the core that we are the one people in human history that cut ourselves off from our own culture. But yeah if you want to be like some angry dragon living on your horde of data go ahead and don't put it on the internet. It's a messed up way of going through life but if you really really don't want your furry porn copied this is how you can go about it.
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Non-consenual porn: I agree its at best in very poor taste and at worst harassment. Go ahead and throw the book at people who do it.
What’s the ignorance? I think worrying about how we are going to curb these pretty consequential problems this technology in the hands of these particular companies brings is….pretty valid.
Also, did you say burning up the planet even faster, stealing and profiting off of people’s livelihood, and…fucking making nonconsensual porn of underage girls are “zero” problems? The fuck?
Not to mention…the worsening of class inequality? Do you just no see these as problems? Or…what exactly is the argument here.
What’s the ignorance?
The person was calling for a ban on advancing this technology
Also, did you say burning up the planet even faster, stealing and profiting off of people’s livelihood, and…fucking making nonconsensual porn of underage girls are “zero” problems? The fuck?
Let's conduct an intelligence test, one I am sure a LLM could pass. What did I actually say? Let me know if you need help.
I always know when someone doesn't have a good argument when they give me a dozen bad ones. 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 .... Still equals 0. No matter how many times you do it.
This. This is what you actually said. Directly after quoting exactly what I said. There’s…no other way to read that. You’re calling them non-problems that pale in comparison to the unabated advancement of capitalist expansion.
These tools, in the right hands, could be very useful. They could free us from work in the future.
But they’re not in the right hands. They’re in the hands of capitalists.
Whether those are Russian capitalists, US-based capitalists, Chinese capitalists, the aim is the same. Having these people own this tech isn’t good for humanity. As evidenced by the problems I listed; not only is it underage, nonconsensual porn made of real-ass people that you wrote off by saying some shit like, “it’s at best in poor taste and at worst harassment”…these are people’s fucking lives you’re talking about. So, you’re clearly a man, probably a white man. Because no one else would be so flippant about something that can so fucking devastate the lives of those affected.
But not only is that a problem we aren’t even trying to solve in the name of being “pro-business,” the biggest problem that somehow even manages to rank above kids killing themselves after their still-forming brains are fucking shattered by devastation, is what this does to the ongoing class war. Someone else ITT likened it to the invention of the nuke. And that’s true. But they said, in the geopolitical race it’s akin to the invention of the nuke, whereas I see it as nuke in the class war. And the ownership class is getting closer to holding it in their hands. But since it’s good for the economy and the politicians are on the side of the ownership class anyway, this problem isn’t even broached in this discussion. But it badly needs to be.
In a time of near unprecedented inequality, we are watching them hit the accelerator. Which is an apt comparison, because this tech is also hastening our head-on collision with climate apocalypse. While developing nations are being told to curb emissions, we in the superpower states are increasing our co2 output with this stupid tech. And you said some shit about nuclear and renewables and fuckin carbon taxes? Well, sure, those are hypothetical bandaids on this festering wound, but they’re just that. The acceleration of LLM/“AI” energy consumption while we break heat and natural disaster record after heat and natural disaster record—as that fucking climate apocalypse cliff edge approaches faster and faster is just…utter lunacy. And this alone should give us reason enough to change course. But that’s not the only reason.
So, yeah, I vehemently disagree with your characterization of these problems as “0+0+0” when it comes to the argument against AI.
Tl:dr
“You’re gonna make an argument against my stupid position?! But I don’t wanna read four paragraphs!”
The mark of a truly confident, well-intentioned debater. Won’t take three minutes. To read…four paragraphs. mwah love it
Yeah yeah I suck go ask Lemmy for your money back. Maybe you can via fax or whatever boomer shit you insist on using.
lol wut
Ask your grandkids to help you parse it. We are done.
lol yeah because that “what” was because I didn’t understand your super deep shit. You always get so worked up over someone suggesting capitalism isn’t the best? Some real bootlicker shit, that
From the article:
SB 1047 is a California state bill that would make large AI model providers – such as Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Mistral – liable for the potentially catastrophic dangers of their AI systems.
The article lies about what's in the bill. No idea why.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1047
This bill seems somewhat misguided. How in the hell is something like a large language model going to cause a mass casualty incident? What I am more worried about is things that could more realistically pose a danger. What if robotic dogs patrolling the border have machine guns mounted on their backs, then a child does something unexpected and the robot wipes out an entire family? What if a self driving car suddenly takes off at full speed through a parade? They are trying to slot AI into everything now, and it will inevitably end up in some places that are going to cause loss of life. But chatbots? Give me a break.
You gonna understand the state is run by paranoid sociopaths. They'll dream up any delusional scenario, then use it as an excuse for more surveillance, prisons, wars, control, etc.
For example, imagine somebody hacks a major social platform and sends a fake message from AI/deepfake Trump to thousand of chuds inciting some kind of fascist terrorism. It might sound unrealistic but what if?!?!?! I could imagine something similar happening with current tech. (I think it's part of why they're trying to ban TikTok.)
In general I feel like "AI" is almost entirely lies, hype, grifting, etc. But I could imagine some scenarios that the state might want to disincentivize.
Everyone: "AI is using too much energy!"
Legislators: "I shall make companies liable for terminators."
It’s also not clear if it’s even possible to fully prevent AI systems from misbehaving. The truth is, we don’t know a lot about how LLMs work, and today’s leading AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are jailbroken all the time. That’s why some researchers are saying regulators should focus on the bad actors, not the model providers.
It seems a complicated debate. Hard to find out where you want to stand. I want to show a method to find answers by creating 3 variants of an analogy.
For how many of these cases do you think somebody should be doing something?
Case 1:
A huge warehouse full of firearms. Burglars are breaking into it every night and stealing lots of weapons. The owners say they don't know how this warehouse was built and how to make it more secure in order to stop the criminals from obtaining lots of new weapons every day. The general public starts calling to the government to do something. Some say the warehouse owner should take responsibility. Others say it all depends on how the criminals use the weapons. The criminals seem to know how to use them good...
Case 2:
A huge warehouse full of hammers. Burglars are breaking into it every night and stealing lots of hammers. The owners say they don't know how this warehouse was built and how to make it more secure in order to stop the criminals from obtaining lots of new hammers every day. The general public starts calling to the government to do something. Some say the warehouse owner should take responsibility. Others say it all depends on how the criminals use the hammers. The criminals seem to know how to use them good...
Case 3:
A huge warehouse full of tulips. Burglars are breaking into it every night and stealing lots of flowers. The owners say they don't know how this warehouse was built and how to make it more secure in order to stop the criminals from obtaining lots of new flowers every day. The general public starts calling to the government to do something. Some say the warehouse owner should take responsibility. Others say it all depends on how the criminals use the tulips. The criminals seem to know how to use them good...
Are warehouse owners analogous to AI companies here? I don't think AI companies care about their models being misused unless it has economic impact whereas warehouse owners certainly care about their wares being stolen regardless of how those wares are then used or how dangerous they are.
I don't think AI companies care about their models being misused
Yes, that is one of the current questions, if you have read the article: Should they care?
It is a serious question, because if the models are misused, that could be a threat to all mankind - much worse than a warehouse full of weapons. And if they are required to care, then they might have to rebuild their models fundamentally, and they don't know how.
I don't see how this is enforceable.
Large AI providers will also have high caliber legal teams to fight any incident and demonstrate it it wasn't the AI's fault, but the stupid people who gave it control.
Smaller projects won't have the same warchests, and eventually they'll become the target.
In the meantime, yeah, Zuckerberg and all the other flank-speed-ahead investors will not be slowed in making the AI that will smooth talk our billionaires into a failed trip to mars.
Yes that's the point, this legislation is mostly aimed and creating a legal moat for the large tech companies.
California, known for sunshine, Hollywood and for keeping new tech on a tight leash .
Does that apply to any other type of technology, or are they just witch hunting?
any other type of technology
Are there, for example, nuclear weapons available for general use?
What kind of straw-man fallacy is that?
Please be rational.
Nuclear power keeps lots of people lights on. Same a AI technology is already making lots of people live better. For instance, in my country the IRS equivalent is already using it to successfully detect fiscal fraud.
That's not a straw man. Nuclear technology is highly regulated.
I do not know how regulations come into play. But I'm OK with regulating technology according to its potential (real, not imagined) risk.
What I'm not OK with is with primitivism.