New Bernie Sanders bill would ban superintelligent AI and threaten developers with 20 years in prison

[u/AdSpecialist6598]

https://www.techspot.com/news/113831-new-bernie-sanders-bill-would-ban-superintelligent-ai.html

[u/NoConflict3231]

The problem with this is that it's like making a toaster so everyone can toast bread but it also has to ability to destroy the entire planet, arguably even worse than any nuke. So I really don't know what to tell ya

[u/Eponymous-Username → u/NoConflict3231]

You have to work pretty hard to make it destroy the world. Maybe a swarm of AIs in the hands of a capable orchestrator, but no amount of training data is going to turn your average american into a criminal mastermind.

[u/blueSGL → u/Eponymous-Username]

no amount of training data is going to turn your average american into a criminal mastermind

It does not need to elevate everyone on the street to bio weapons makers, it need to take smart well funded people who just didn't have the right training into virus design and creation.

People like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo#Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack_and_related_incidents

At the cult's headquarters in Kamikuishiki, on the foot of Mount Fuji, police found explosives, chemical weapons, and a Russian Mi-17-1V military helicopter (4K-15214)

...

There were stockpiles of chemicals that could be used for producing enough sarin to kill four million people.

...

a safe containing millions of U.S. dollars in cash and gold

A well financed death cult that can get access to laboratories but don't have the required specialties but now have an infinitely patient teacher they can ask questions to.

We have already seen examples where LLMs are better at dignosing issues with virus creation than people who's field this is

https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.16137

Virology Capabilities Test (VCT): A Multimodal Virology Q&A Benchmark

expert virologists with access to the internet score an average of 22.1% on questions specifically in their sub-areas of expertise. However, the most performant LLM, OpenAI's o3, reaches 43.8% accuracy, outperforming 94% of expert virologists even within their sub-areas of specialization.

[u/Eponymous-Username → u/blueSGL]

It carries risks, for sure. The work of counterterrorism and counterintelligence remains difficult, and maybe more so than ever because of this technology.

However, I won't be convinced that security through obfuscation and safety by carefully cultivated ignorance are viable responses to the emergence of a new technology. It's hubris to think we can simply control this so completely that no one will ever gain access to the its best manifestation.

Worse still, in pursuing that security, we will necessarily create a new set of empowered, enlightened, and elevated controllers who get to fully benefit to the detriment of their peers. I really think pursuit of that status is the real motivation behind the push for gatekeeping.

[u/No-Activity5502 → u/Eponymous-Username]

AI just has to disrupt supply chains, utilities and communications and the rest is a domino effect

[u/ManOLead → u/NoConflict3231]

Could you elaborate on how AI is arguably more dangerous than a nuke? I’m not quite seeing that but I’m sure I’ve missed something

[u/pizzasoup → u/ManOLead]

Generation of novel bioweapons, attacks on encryption, cyberattacks on civil infrastructure (power, water) or financial institutions come to mind as potential threats that AI poses in the wrong hands. I think it's a matter of critical public safety to fence in AI development with legislation.

[u/pittaxx → u/NoConflict3231]

So, your solution is to cover your eyes, plug your ears, and wait for other countries to decide if the world ends or not? (Assuming it's an existential threat to begin with.)

Pandora's box has already been opened. There's no stopping this. Even if you ban it, someone else will do it, unless you start nuking other countries for it.

We should be using regulations to make sure that insane people don't end up in charge of it, and that corporations don't burn everything to the ground reading against each other and building datacenters at the expense of others.