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Outcry from big AI firms over California AI “kill switch” bill (arstechnica.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

There are many tools that might be used to create a biological weapon or something. You can use a pocket calculator for that. But we don't place bars on sale of pocket calculators to require proof be issued that nothing hazardous can be done with them. That is, this is a bar that is substantially higher than exists for any other tool.
Second, while I certainly think that there are legitimate existential risks, we are not looking at a near-term one. OpenAI or whoever isn't going to be producing something human-level any time soon. Like, Stable Diffusion, a tool used to generate images, would fall under this. It's very questionable that it, however, would be terribly useful in doing anything dangerous.
California putting a restriction like that in place, absent some kind of global restriction, won't stop development of models. It just ensures that it'll happen outside California. Like, it'll have a negative economic impact on California, maybe, but it's not going to have a globally-restrictive impact.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 months ago

Like, Stable Diffusion, a tool used to generate images, would fall under this. It's very questionable that it, however, would be terribly useful in doing anything dangerous.

My concern is how short a hop it is from this to "won't someone please think of the children?" And then someone uses Stable Diffusion to create a baby in a sexy pose and it's all down in flames. IMO that sort of thing happens enough that pushing back against "gateway" legislation is reasonable.

California putting a restriction like that in place, absent some kind of global restriction, won't stop development of models.

I'd be concerned about its impact on the deployment of models too. Companies are not going to want to write software that they can't sell in California, or that might get them sued if someone takes it into California despite it not being sold there. Silicon Valley is in California, this isn't like it's Montana banning it.