[HN Gopher] OpenAI appoints Retired U.S. Army General Paul M. Na...
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       OpenAI appoints Retired U.S. Army General Paul M. Nakasone to Board
        
       Author : flawn
       Score  : 66 points
       Date   : 2024-06-13 21:12 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (openai.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (openai.com)
        
       | sweettea wrote:
       | This seems very much the beginning of the situation predicted by
       | Aschenbrenner in [1], where the AI labs eventually will be fully
       | part of the national security apparatus. Fascinating to see if
       | the other major AI labs also add ex-military folks to their
       | directors or whether this is unique to OpenAI.
       | 
       | Or conceivably his experience is genuinely relevant and unrelated
       | to US national security going forward, completely unrelated to
       | the governmental apparatus and not a sign of the times.
       | 
       | [1] situational-awareness.ai
        
         | Teever wrote:
         | LLMs are exactly what that NSA datacenter in Utah was built
         | for.
         | 
         | It's gonna be wild to see what secret needles come out of that
         | haystack.
        
           | WalterSear wrote:
           | [delayed]
        
       | blackhawkC17 wrote:
       | Former director of the National Security Agency (NSA)...good to
       | know the U.S. government keeps tabs on my ChatGPT prompts :)
        
         | Frummy wrote:
         | You're not self-censoring in your prompts? Lagging behind!
        
       | neilv wrote:
       | Will there soon be regulator-industry revolving doors for AI?
        
       | ur-whale wrote:
       | > OpenAI appoints Retired U.S. Army General to board.
       | 
       | Very typical move of a company planning to enter the military
       | supplier space.
        
         | andy_ppp wrote:
         | Of course Sigint want to be letting these models scan
         | everything but I guess the really interesting part is how much
         | data the NSA has to make the models even better.
        
           | causal wrote:
           | Relevant Schneier post
           | 
           | https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/12/ai-and-
           | mass-s...
        
       | dogtorwoof wrote:
       | Ex-NSA...how are we supposed to feel about this?
        
         | smt88 wrote:
         | We should be horrified and thank the many people who have blown
         | the whistle about Sam Altman. He is dangerously greedy and has
         | no principles.
        
           | Jimmc414 wrote:
           | Do you not see the national security aspects of 2024 AI? It's
           | very similar to the nuclear race where, right or wrong, there
           | is a non-zero possibility of a winner take all supremacy
           | scenario where the first to reach superintelligence rules the
           | world.
        
             | JohnFen wrote:
             | There may be a nonzero chance of developing a
             | superintelligence (or even AGI in any meaningful sense),
             | but it's so close to zero that it doesn't matter.
             | 
             | Particularly because if a superintelligence is actually
             | created, it won't matter who did it. It won't be the
             | servant of the creators.
        
         | boomboomsubban wrote:
         | Ex director of the NSA, but to be fair it has been a whole four
         | months since then. What are the chances he still has
         | connections with the agency?
        
           | markus_zhang wrote:
           | Definitely zero.
        
             | benopal64 wrote:
             | Yeah, they brain-wipe you after you leave the NSA /s
        
           | manquer wrote:
           | Or rather that agency has still connections to him
        
           | Ntrails wrote:
           | > What are the chances he still has connections with the
           | agency?
           | 
           |  _Inconceivable_
        
         | karaterobot wrote:
         | [eye twitching]
         | 
         | ... Good. Everything's so good.
        
         | JohnFen wrote:
         | It looks to me like a sign that OpenAI is getting more
         | comfortable with revealing their true colors.
        
       | oldstrangers wrote:
       | I've always wondered if the US Government's AI research is as
       | advanced as their general technological lead (usually 10-15 years
       | ahead of consumer tech). If so, it would mean OpenAI has more to
       | gain with such a partnership than the other way around. And maybe
       | this sort of oversight is a kind of de facto requirement when
       | approaching AGI.
        
         | AlotOfReading wrote:
         | The US government doesn't have a general technological lead.
         | There are a only few specific areas where they have leads by
         | virtue of funding/doing most of the research, like
         | cryptography, sensors, explosives and such. Most of these areas
         | are relatively narrow too. The government is usually buying
         | special versions of readily available commercial products. Any
         | F500 company could buy things just as powerful.
        
         | notatoad wrote:
         | In what fields is the government 10-15 years ahead of consumer
         | tech? That seems like a totally absurd claim.
         | 
         | Technology moves a _very_ long way in 15 years. The only
         | markets this might be true is for specialized military
         | equipment where there is no consumer market other than
         | aftermarket military goods.
        
       | activitypea wrote:
       | Shoutouts to Metal Gear Solid 2, not much else left to say here.
        
         | bezier-curve wrote:
         | Its commentary on AI and surveillance was really ahead of its
         | time.
        
       | simonw wrote:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Nakasone
       | 
       | He was the director of the NSA AND head of United States Cyber
       | Command from 2018 until his retirement in Feb 2024 - so very
       | recent!
        
       | walterbell wrote:
       | Ex-Google Eric Schmidt chaired U.S. NSCAI (National Security
       | Commission on Artificial Intelligence), it's worth reading the
       | final report (2021),
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20230211035940/https://www.nscai...
       | 
       |  _> ... our leaders confront the classic dilemma of statecraft
       | identified by Henry Kissinger: "When your scope for action is
       | greatest, the knowledge on which you can base this action is
       | always at a minimum. When your knowledge is greatest, the scope
       | for action has often disappeared." ... AI systems will also be
       | used in the pursuit of power. We fear AI tools will be weapons of
       | first resort in future conflicts. AI will not stay in the domain
       | of superpowers or the realm of science fiction. AI is dual-use,
       | often open-source, and diffusing rapidly._
        
       | 2kajshg wrote:
       | There are many ways to read this. One of the most obvious ones is
       | that ChatGPT is becoming more and more disappointing after the
       | initial surprise, so the tech has to be flipped to the MIC.
        
         | turtleyacht wrote:
         | Military Industrial Complex
        
       | tonfreed wrote:
       | Well lads, it was fun while it lasted
        
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       (page generated 2024-06-13 23:01 UTC)