In this episode, we dive into some of the AI safety reports that have been issued in recent weeks. Jeffery Atik first takes us through the basics of attention-based AI, and then into reports on AI safety from OpenAI and Stanford. Exactly what AI safety covers remains opaque (and toxic, in my view, after the ideological purges committed in the name of "trust and safety" by Silicon Valley's content suppression bureaucracies). But there's no doubt that a potential existential issue lurks below the surface of the most ambitious AI projects.
Whether or not ChatGPT's stochastic parroting will ever pose a threat to humanity, Nick Weaver reports, it clearly poses a threat to a lot of people's reputations.
I confess that there's surprisingly little cyberlaw in the biggest intel leak of the last decade. It turns out that leakers can do as much damage as cyberspies, just by folding, carrying, and photographing classified documents. While there's some evidence that the Russian government may have piggybacked on the leak to sow disinformation, Nick says, the real puzzle is the leaker's motivation. That leads us to the question whether being a griefer is grounds for losing your clearance.
