AI Is Already In Dangerous Hands
We recorded 21 claims from this post. 21 can’t be checked. 12 more are held. Read the post at its source.
Claims from this post (21)
In the order they appear in the post. Each quotation is the speaker’s words in this post. A label such as “Supported” or “Can’t be checked” is the claim’s current assessment; its page has the evidence and the reasons.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“The fact that LLMs from both Anthropic and Meta have been involved in similar incidents is a sign that we need to arrest more people.”
Our reading: Because Anthropic and Meta LLMs were involved in similar hacking incidents, more people need to be arrested.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“And I also want to be clear about something: The Hugging Face attack was dangerous, reckless and somebody should go to prison for it.”
Our reading: The Hugging Face attack was dangerous and reckless, and someone should go to prison for it.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“The reason they are training these models, as I got into in my podcast Better Offline with Cal Newport, is that there’s a mountain of potential different kinds of exploit and vulnerability data online that you can cram into these models now that they’re hitting the diminishing returns on coding.”
Our reading: AI labs train cybersecurity models because they are hitting diminishing returns on coding and there is abundant exploit data online.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“The fact that Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta are both training and allowing cybersecurity models to connect to their vast amounts of GPU infrastructure is irresponsible and should not be legal.”
Our reading: Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta training cybersecurity models connected to vast GPU infrastructure is irresponsible and should not be legal.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“This is a short note, but an important one: the terminology of “pacing the frontier” or “slowing down” implicitly buys into the narrative that the AI industry’s path is the correct one, and that the only problem is the speed it’s moving at.”
Our reading: The terminology of 'pacing the frontier' or 'slowing down' implicitly buys into the narrative that the AI industry's path is correct and that the only problem is the speed it is moving at.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“In my opinion, there is no further reason to invest in this industry, nor has there been for the vast majority of its existence.”
Our reading: In his opinion, there is no further reason to invest in the AI industry, nor has there been for the vast majority of its existence.
No horizon
Qualifier: in my opinion
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“Every success that LLMs have had is a direct result of throwing at least half a trillion dollars in infrastructure and compute spend at problems that had vast amounts of data that could be trained against. Half a trillion dollars should have bought us a lot more than this.”
Our reading: LLM successes came from spending at least $500 billion on data-rich problems, and that spend should have bought much more.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“This is a terrible deal, its results suck, and the amount of attention it’s gotten is a direct result of the media’s inability to speak truth to power or do anything other than repeat what they say and a financial bubble driven by LLMs’ unbelievable infrastructural cost.”
Our reading: The half-trillion-dollar spend on LLMs is a terrible deal with results that suck, and the attention it has received is a direct result of the media's inability to speak truth to power and of a financial bubble driven by LLMs' unbelievable infrastructure costs.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“While it’s tempting to view this entirely as an opp — a coordinated industry-wide plan to push for some sort of self-regulation — in my mind it’s likely an attempt by the AI safety people to push an agenda that has spiralled completely out of control.”
Our reading: In his view, rather than being viewed entirely as a coordinated industry-wide push for self-regulation, the Coxon episode is likely an AI safety advocates' attempt to push an agenda that has spiralled completely out of control.
No horizon
Qualifier: in my mind
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“Within a day of Coxon’s post, Clammy Sam Altman spoke with Fortune saying that OpenAI was delaying going public until 2027, as it was an “ill-advised moment” due to “safety concerns” rather than, I imagine, the fact that its financials are godawful.”
Our reading: OpenAI's financials are terrible, and that rather than safety is likely the real reason it delayed its IPO to 2027.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“There are, of course, real, meaningful things you could do if you actually were worried about LLMs — halting all model training, all cybersecurity evaluations, and starting a criminal inquiry into the Hugging Face attack that ends in somebody going to jail for the crime they used the models to commit.”
Our reading: Real, meaningful steps for anyone actually worried about LLMs would be halting all model training and all cybersecurity evaluations, and starting a criminal inquiry into the Hugging Face attack that ends with somebody going to jail.
No horizon
Only if: if you actually were worried about LLMs
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Causal claim
“The “success” of the Hugging Face attack was largely a result of the sheer scale of OpenAI’s compute operation, and would not have been possible without Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Oracle, and CoreWeave’s continued enabling of an unprofitable, unsustainable company that is desperate for new business models.”
Our reading: The 'success' of the Hugging Face attack was largely a result of the sheer scale of OpenAI's compute operation, and would not have been possible without Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Oracle, and CoreWeave's continued enabling of an unprofitable, unsustainable company desperate for new business models.
No horizon
Qualifier: largely
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“There is no way a “slow down” actually gels with the overall narrative of AI’s rapacious growth.”
Our reading: A slowdown cannot coexist with the narrative of AI's rapid growth.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“While this might have the short-term benefit of reducing costs (and maybe even, with the right amount of accounting shenanigans, eek out a razor-thin positive margin), it’s likely that Chinese open source developers would distill (as they have been) Western models, create a much cheaper and “good enough” model to compete, and their “lead” in a race where everybody loses money would deteriorate.”
Our reading: If AI labs paused training, Chinese open source developers would likely distill Western models into cheaper competitors and erode the labs' lead.
No horizon
Only if: if AI labs pause training
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“There’s also the very reasonable question of what happens to SoftBank if OpenAI can’t go public, which is now a very real possibility.”
Our reading: It is now a very real possibility that OpenAI cannot go public, which raises the reasonable question of what happens to SoftBank in that case.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“With over $40 billion of debt due to be refinanced this year at a time of skyrocketing interest rates, it’s probably the single-worst time in history for it to be doing a $20 billion bond sale (separate from the aforementioned $11.87bn bank loan), which is why I think things are getting a little tight.”
Our reading: With over $40 billion of debt due to be refinanced this year amid skyrocketing interest rates, it is probably the single-worst time in history for SoftBank to do a $20 billion bond sale, which is why he thinks things are getting a little tight.
No horizon
Qualifier: at a time of skyrocketing interest rates
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“I think it’s far simpler: the AI industry is run by a series of different entities with deeply cynical and selfish beliefs, all operating “in sync” only so far as it benefits ideologies and intentions that change on a daily basis.”
Our reading: He thinks the AI industry is run by different entities with deeply cynical and selfish beliefs, operating in sync only so far as it benefits ideologies and intentions that change daily.
No horizon
Qualifier: I think
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“What it may do — though I’m not getting my hopes up prematurely — is lead to the unwinding of the AI trade as reality slams head-first into the scaremongering overpromises of some of the least-trustworthy and most-craven executives in the history of society.”
Our reading: The slowdown talk may lead to the unwinding of the AI trade.
No horizon
Qualifier: slowdown talk as trigger
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“the grim truth that we need to start arresting people for committing crimes, halting any and all training runs, and putting real safeguards on this technology”
Our reading: We need to arrest people for AI-enabled crimes, halt all training runs, and impose real safeguards because the labs are irresponsible.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Rhetoric
“If LLMs were a toy, they’d be taken off the shelves. If LLMs were a drug, they would be banned.”
Our reading: If LLMs were a toy they would be taken off the shelves, and if they were a drug they would be banned.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“I agree that we need to take “AI safety” seriously, but that starts with treating LLMs as normal software run in a reckless and dangerous manner by malevolent entities with little regard for society.”
Our reading: Taking AI safety seriously should start with treating LLMs as normal software run recklessly by malevolent entities.
No horizon
Held from this post (12)
These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: Because Anthropic and OpenAI represent 70% of hyperscalers' AI revenues, there really is no fallback plan.
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