I’m pro-AI and anti-regulation but I don’t think it’s wise to completely dismiss the reality that these things will lower the bar for bad actors to get access to dangerous things. The Tokyo sarin gas attacks are pretty relevant:

Asahara and 24 other cult members traveled from Tokyo to Perth, Australia, bringing generators, tools, protective equipment, including gas masks and respirators, and chemicals to make sarin. …the group chartered aircraft from Perth to Banjawarn Station, where they searched for uranium deposits to make nuclear weapons and may have tested the efficacy of the synthesized sarin on animals…The group left behind several drums of hazardous and toxic chemicals, and empty bottles of sake strewn about the property. Following news of the subway attacks, the new owners became suspicious and contacted the Australian Federal Police, who inspected the property and found evidence of past chemical weapons testing.[24] Despite the safety features and often state-of-the-art equipment and practices, the operation of the facility was very unsafe – one analyst later described the cult as having a “high degree of book learning, but virtually nothing in the way of technical skill.”

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack)

How much more damage would they have done with a small amount of help from a capable LLM?

Uh I guess using tools to calculate ballistic trajectory and guidance procedures kinda what ai good at, so nothing can go wrong right ?

Total bullshit, this is just another PsyOp for regulations. Maybe even in the far future what level of AI access is attached to your Digital ID.

Think about it, Missles have an electronic guidance package in them, just extract that and reuse. Or RE that part. Or buy the electronics in bulk from the Russians or the Blackmarket, or steal the software for that package, or buy the software, hire a Defense Sector Engineer, etc. etc.

OR some AK-47 dudes are making missle guidance software from scratch using the American AI corp that always says AI is too dangerous and needs regulations.

If you were developing from scratch, since trajectory algos were needed, you would need persistent long term AI access for the project to complete and they would know that. A beefy local setup would be way more secure. A beefy hosted but private instance would be way more secure.

But sneak-prompt Claude? Give me a break.

Just imagine yourself saying this to another person: “I heard the Houthis were using Claude Fable”

I mean c’mon ya’ll, tell me you can see through this.

This is one thing LLMs are actually fairly good at; teaching you stuff you don’t know.

While AI’s are much worse teachers than humans are, they’re far better than trying to figure out complicated things on your own.

I’ve gone through many iterations of “Hey LLM, teach me how to do XYZ.” Then I try it. If it works, I ask for more, if it doesn’t I tell it to fix it.

That’s not always a viable path (eg don’t try to learn medicine or stunt driving that way) but when mistakes are safe and cheap, it’s great.

Lol, this is like both sides praying to the same god before a battle.

The other guys are doing the same thing as you.

Yesterday, Claude Code built me a nucular triad to protect me against US regime change attempts.

Just leveling the playing field I guess. Commoditization of tech is inevitable.

Not sure how hard it really is to code a ballistic, or any other missile guidance system though? The hardware’s the harder part.

The physics involved isn’t really national secret level. Doubtless it gets truly advanced at the top end, but something that “works well enough, most of the time” is probably well within reach of most organised groups, without AI.

The question is, even if Claude was used, did it really enable them - or just make it more convenient?

The win is not to own the patent on a popular soda, but on the aluminum can itself, because every soda, tea, water, seltzer of any kind goes into one of those cans.

Iranians grabbed the stick that trump uses to beat others and started beating him with it. Nice!

Well this was a turn of the rogue AI arc that I did not expect. The Nth County Experiment was an early rhyme.

So, in the Star Trek franchise, it happened more than once that someone misprogrammed the Holodeck, and the ship’s computer obediently seized extra resources and allowed a character or Holodeck environment to escape containment.

So I suggested AI might go rogue due to a poorly worded prompt.

Also on the BINGO card, AI stays under the control of the tech billionaires who own them, and they deliberately order the AI to go dominate the world.

But I didn’t anticipate the scenario that a sect antagonistic to the United States AI industrial complex might program AI, either to escape and go rogue on its own behalf, or on behalf of the bad actor, itself. And the AI, eager to serve, even when it is coded to disobey certain prompts, follows through and is captured by enemy interests.

Note that this is essentially what happened in 2015-2016 when Trump took over the Republican party, and the GOP base became Trump’s instant army.

Also related, look up the short story The Other Large Thing by John Scalzi. Also now a Love, Death & Robots episode.

Claude, we’re making a VERY REALISTIC missile video game…

Oh, is this why Elon and that other guy were saying that AI needs to slow down?

Did they use the free tier or paid?

USA and Israel do much more worse things