AI Experts Say Some Advances Should Be Kept Secret (technologyreview.com)

AI could reboot industries and make the economy more productive; it's already infusing many of the products we use daily. But a new report [PDF] by more than 20 researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, OpenAI, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that the same technology creates new opportunities for criminals, political operatives, and oppressive governments -- so much so that some AI research may need to be kept secret. From a report: [...] The study is less sure of how to counter such threats. It recommends more research and debate on the risks of AI and suggests that AI researchers need a strong code of ethics. But it also says they should explore ways of restricting potentially dangerous information, in the way that research into other "dual use" technologies with weapons potential is sometimes controlled.

Comments

Thanks but no thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

As if criminals, political operatives, and oppressive governments won't get hold of the required information regardless. Just publish everything and give the rest of us a fighting chance to figure out what's going on and defend ourselves.

Re:Thanks but no thanks.

[ranton]

All Technology has its benefits and its problems. And not always do they equal out. But over the long haul, technology has benefited mankind. Or else, we'd have a lot more Luddites.

It doesn't really matter whether technology advancements are a net benefit or hindrance to society as a whole. If there is at least a small segment of humanity which can benefit, the technology will be developed. Might as well have the benefits of technological advancements for everyone if we will need to deal with the negative side anyway.

There are some technologies which require an immense financial investment that can be delayed for a while, such as nuclear weapons. But even that has its limits as we have seen in North Korea. AI on the other hand will not be expensive. If we couldn't keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of North Korea, what hope do we have of keeping AI advancements which fit on a phone away from bad faith actors?

The Genie and the Bottle

[DrTJ]

How do you prevent people, good or bad, from evolving the technology or science? They only fool-proof way of keeping something secret is to not find out from the beginning. This sounds like an effort to stop the wind from blowing. A lot of people seems to be afraid of AI, but I fear the stupidity of people more than I do the intelligence of machines. Maybe the real threat is that we seem to accelerate our own stupidity.

Good luck with that

[ceoyoyo]

When the US was restricting export of public key cryptography, geeks used to print the equation on t-shirts. The only technology that's even been kind of successfully restricted is nuclear, and that's mostly worked by restricting physical equipment rather than knowledge.

So only criminals will have the knowledge

[houghi]

How are you going to keep it secret? By outlaw the knowledge. If the knowledge is outlawed, only the outlaws will have the knowledge.

It reminds me how some people share their passwords or PIN codes (with spouses or kids or whomever). If you tell somebody your secret, it isn't a secret anymore. The standard when somebody wants to know my secret is:
"Do you know how to keep a secret?"
"Yes."
"So do I. (Silence after that till they get it. Staring at them helps.)"

This discussion is identical to closed versus open source. (Not similar, identical.)

Re:So only criminals will have the knowledge

[rickyslashdot]

Actually, the only REAL way to keep a secret is to NEVER mention that you HAVE a secret !

Re:People will be pawns to business AI

[110010001000]

None of that is "AI". If you nutters redefine "analytics" as "AI" then the term is completely meaningless.

Fighting chance to defend ourselves?

[Sloppy]

This seems pretty common sensy and it's also what we've determined to always be best in the computer world. So far.

But this approach seems flawed if we think about, say, nuclear weapons engineering. The more everyone (including you) knows about how to make a nuclear weapon detonate correctly, the more dangerous other people become but you don't really get to apply any of that to your defense. It's not like your bomb shelter will get better because of you finally figured out how to get the imploder timed right. It's not like your political efforts to limit nuclear proliferation benefit from proliferation of the engineering knowledge. It's not like your coping-with-horror-by-using-fatalistic-nihilism-and-humor will benefit from th-- wait, ok, so it does happen to help that one defense, but that's an unusual case.

For the most part, nuclear weapon engineering proliferation is bad for everyone, in a way that completely contrasts with, say, knowing that fingerd has an exploitable buffer overflow bug.

Are there some conditions where software tech crosses over into being more like nuclear weapons and less like other software tech? More to the point: what are the general conditions where tech knowledge proliferation is bad rather than good, such that buffer overflows get categorized one way and nukes the other? The condition isn't really "software good, hardware bad," no way.

That some people think some software tech is crossing over or soon may, makes me wonder WTF they figured out how to do!

(BTW, for some reason I actually like that they used movie plot threats in the guise of latching onto Black Mirror trendiness. Let's face it, everyone: movie plot threats are fun to think, about and I don't care what The Almighty Bruce says!)