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.

More Authoritarian Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest danger is secrecy, not technology. We should never grant the state any advantage. If we don't fight back, we are doomed... DOOMED!

Open Source

[randomErr]

Isn't that what they said what about OSS? To be honest, aren't the bad guys just going to use last generation's AI to crack the current generation and then make it available on black market? Look at how long it tool to crack DVD and Bluray keys? It was meant to be the most advanced of it's time.

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.)

Trust me, I'm a scientist

[petes_PoV]

... so much so that some AI research may need to be kept secret.

So a research group thinks there should be more research into AI. But they think the topics to be researched should be kept secret.

I wonder if their AI driven grant application writer came up with that one.

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!)

Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks

[DNS-and-BIND]

This was written in 1853 by Charles Tomlinson, and is only an excerpt of the the treatise, but it shows that people recognized that 'security' trough obscurity was not really security at all, way before the digital age. A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within the last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the security or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that the discussion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety of locks offers a premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be dishonest. This is a fallacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession, and already know much more than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery. Rogues knew a good deal about lockpicking long before locksmiths discussed it among themselves, as they have lately done. If a lock -- let it have been made in whatever country, or by whatever maker -- is not so inviolable as it has hitherto been deemed to be, surely it is in the interest of honest persons to know this fact, because the dishonest are tolerably certain to be the first to apply the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance. It cannot be too earnestly urged, that an acquintance with real facts will, in the end, be better for all parties. Some time ago, when the reading public was alarmed at being told how London milk is adulterated, timid persons deprecated the exposure, on the plea that it would give instructions in the art of adulterating milk; a vain fear -- milkmen knew all about it before, whether they practiced it or not; and the exposure only taught purchasers the necessity of a little scrutiny and caution, leaving them to obey this necessity or not, as they pleased. ...The unscrupulous have the command of much of this kind of knowledge without our aid; and there is moral and commercial justice in placing on their guard those who might possibly suffer therefrom. We employ these stray expressions concerning adulteration, debasement, roguery, and so forth, simply as a mode of illustrating a principle -- the advantage of publicity. In respect to lock-making, there can scarcely be such a thing as dishonesty of intention: the inventor produces a lock which he honestly thinks will posess such and such qualities; and he declares his belief to the world. If others differ from him in opinion concerning those qualities, it is open to them to say so; and the discussion, truthfully conducted, must lead to public advantage: the discussion stimulates curiosity, and curiosity stimulates invention. Nothing but a partial and limited view of the question could lead to the opinion that harm can result: if there be harm, it will be much more than counterbalanced by good.