OK ok, hear me out. Let's assume the the air gapped computer has no speaker. No way to emit sound. But the AI is able to run the CPU fast enough to kick on the fan. Which can can be picked up by any other computer within audio range (non air gapped computers will likely have microphones). That's at least a covert channel of one bit per ... uhhh ... 10min or so.

OK, let me irritate everyone for a moment ... The non cynical view here is that the labs are trying to navigate impending, unsophisticated federal regulation and a "high strung", well financed doomer complex. And it's just a tough, tough spot to be in. It's entirely consistent to applaud their attempts to find a governance approach to questions around safety and security. To express skepticism about the proposal. And also express concerns about the larger safetyist complex. It's just important not to conflate the three. I'll put aside rhetoric on near term species extinction. Like any major epoch of our industry, new technologies have security implications. And I do think we're in a much better spot with open dialog between Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX on how best to handle, whether it's pacing or not, an independent oversight body or not. (I'm in the "not" camp ... ) I joke in exasperation about heavy handed federal regulation which would clearly be disastrous for all of us. Unfortunately I do think it's a likely outcome if we don't collectively get our shit together. I have no special knowledge. But from what I've gathered over the last few days, the labs really are trying to do the right thing here. It's a very complex and shifting landscape. And the broader safety complex still sucks and continues to be a national security risk.

What Is To Be Done? I propose a simple plan: Big AI companies should be allowed to build AI as fast and aggressively as they can – but not allowed to achieve regulatory capture, not allowed to establish a government-protect cartel that is insulated from market competition due to incorrect claims of AI risk. This will maximize the technological and societal payoff from the amazing capabilities of these companies, which are jewels of modern capitalism. Startup AI companies should be allowed to build AI as fast and aggressively as they can. They should neither confront government-granted protection of big companies, nor should they receive government assistance. They should simply be allowed to compete. If and as startups don’t succeed, their presence in the market will also continuously motivate big companies to be their best – our economies and societies win either way. Open source AI should be allowed to freely proliferate and compete with both big AI companies and startups. There should be no regulatory barriers to open source whatsoever. Even when open source does not beat companies, its widespread availability is a boon to students all over the world who want to learn how to build and use AI to become part of the technological future, and will ensure that AI is available to everyone who can benefit from it no matter who they are or how much money they have. To offset the risk of bad people doing bad things with AI, governments working in partnership with the private sector should vigorously engage in each area of potential risk to use AI to maximize society’s defensive capabilities. This shouldn’t be limited to AI-enabled risks but also more general problems such as malnutrition, disease, and climate. AI can be an incredibly powerful tool for solving problems, and we should embrace it as such. To prevent the risk of China achieving global AI dominance, we should use the full power of our private sector, our scientific establishment, and our governments in concert to drive American and Western AI to absolute global dominance, including ultimately inside China itself. We win, they lose. And that is how we use AI to save the world. It’s time to build.

Next week, @mattyp @roshan_s and myself will be speedrunning building a new company using only Grok @Bot on the Grok Bot Galaxy livestream! We’ve been given just 3 days to do it, or else we might be turned into pizza 🤪 it will be so fun and I hope to see you on the livestream! I will have to miss the Cursor Compile conf in London and Amsterdam though. I will instead record an extended version of my talk and make it freely available here. So stay tuned for that post!

I’m speedrunning a company with @poteto and @roshan_s next week we’ll go from nothing to a business in 72 hours and stream the whole thing we don’t have a name, a product, or an idea yet we’ll use @bot as our employees, but keep real people (us) at the core Lauren says we’ll be turned into pizza in some sort of bond-villain punishment if we fail watch:

If there really is a high chance of AI leading to the extinction of humanity within years/decades, then the only rational stance towards safety monitoring and research pacing should be stringent, top-down government involvement and universally ratified international treaties. Similar to what we have been doing for a long time with nuclear energy and nuclear weapons non-proliferation. If that's not what we're doing, then we must infer that the risk isn't being seriously considered by anyone involved. There are only two options that make sense here: 1. The near-term species extinction risk is real and we are taking it seriously, with maximally heavy-handed regulation. 2. The extinction risk isn't real, actual risks are mild, so we're only pursuing mild safety measures and self-certification. But you cannot say "yes this is likely to end humanity in your lifetime, and we're going to completely wing it." That is simply not rational.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp says people arguing we should pause AI development are not living in reality and de facto saying we should let our enemies win: "If we didn't have adversaries, I would be very in favor of pausing this technology completely, but we do.” Via @cnbc

I do get self regulation as an attempt to hold off heavier handed fed regulation. Which I’d guess is what is going on here. But don’t do it by talking about species extinction. That is playing with fire. And is going to invite total lockdown. See Bernie. OTOH if you really do believe species extinction is a real risk. What are we even doing here talking about some weak ass, voluntary coordination and transparency?

Some great ideas here from the cartel: - you need to give us employee-level access to your entire operation - if we don't think you're 'safe' enough, sorry we're shutting you down for 'safety' - China won't comply, but everyone else has to! or no chips! Brilliant stuff.