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Bernie Sanders tells OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta to pause AI development or face Senate action (www.techspot.com)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Here’s a decent resource if you care to read about, rather than the podcast: https://ainowinstitute.org/publications/research/1-3-ai-arms-race-2-0-from-deregulation-to-industrial-policy

I would summarize it to conclude: The “AI arms race” is not an objective technological fact so much as a politically useful narrative that has helped align government policy with the interests of large AI companies.

My opinion is that we should be a lot more critical of this narrative.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    I am definitely going to read that link, from the start at 1.0, but now right now. Thanks, though.

    Accepting your summary (and sorry if I ask a question answered in the link) but what would an "objective technological fact" regarding any technology being an arms race look like? As in, it seems obvious that a technology that can perform complex exploits of software vulnerabilities without human assistance could be used as a weapon-- so why wouldn't that be a national concern to ensure America has the better technology? How is this different than missiles or bombs, from a technological standpoint?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    To be fair, an AI system capable of independently discovering and exploiting serious software vulnerabilities would be a legitimate national-security concern. The US would have a strong interest in possessing and defending against that capability.

    But a technology is not itself an arms race. An arms race is a pattern of behavior between adversaries involving that technology. That requires observable political, military and economic facts.

    I would point these out as red flags:

    • Developing identifiable autonomous cyberweapons.
    • Each side expands its program substantially because it believes the other is expanding.
    • Established military units, budgets, infrastructure and deployment plans around those systems.

    I would point these out as not counting:

    • AI can be weaponized.
    • China is developing AI.
    • AI could confer military advantages.
    • American companies are spending heavily on general-purpose models.
    • The United States wants to lead commercially.

    In table format, the comparison between AI and those other technologies would ideally look something like this:

    Technology General capability Particular weapon
    Nuclear physics Energy, medicine, scientific research Nuclear warhead
    Rocketry Satellites, transport, exploration Ballistic missile
    Combustion engines Cars, generators, machinery Tank propulsion
    AI Medicine, logistics, coding, science, communications Autonomous targeting or exploitation system

    An AI arms race would look very different than what we see right now.

    With the AI bubble, the communities being disrupted by the environmental impacts of data centers (including infranoise), the constant fear of “use AI or be replaced by AI,” the risky financials on all of this, … all the people that lost retirement value to the SpaceX IPO, … this stuff is a serious public nuisance.

    We don’t need tech CEOs scaring us with talk of an “arms race.” It’s fucked up.

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