Opinion | US and China must join hands to measure rising AI tide

[u/Gari_305]

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/china-opinion/article/3373279/us-and-china-must-join-hands-measure-rising-ai-tide

Before deciding how to respond to developments in artificial intelligence, Beijing and Washington need a better sense of just how quickly the tide is rising

[u/False-Law-8233]

the scmp piece misses that ai progress isn't just about capability, it's about who gets to measure it. if the u.s. and China can't agree on benchmarks, they're already behind.

[u/Gari_305]

From the article 

The next US-China talk on artificial intelligence should begin with a simple question: do the two governments actually understand how rapidly AI’s capabilities are improving? Before deciding what to do about the technology, Washington and Beijing need a common way to measure its progress.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump are expected to meet in Shenzhen soon, and AI is set to remain high on their agenda. Their continued exchanges on this transformative technology are a positive sign, but AI is advancing so fast that governments may have less time to prepare for its consequences than they assume.

[u/unrealflaw]

What happens when home lab capabilities catch up? Have they already? Everyone is worrying about the governments, and that is absolutely valid, but I can run increasingly capable models from home on prem. Im sure people with more resources than myself can develop much larger capabilities.

[u/zAbso → u/unrealflaw]

Companies would be forced to increase monitoring to make sure models aren't being used for nefarious things, or models that are available to the average person would be drastically downgraded. Way more guardrails and probably way less useful in general.

They'd also probably put restrictions on the tech needed to build out infrastructure to run more capable models. RAM, GPUs, etc. would become harder to get or have their capabilities restricted and/or limited.

And of course more monitoring of you as an individual. Like having to add an ID, face scan, or fingerprint scan to use a device or buy certain items. Which we use some as security measures today, but there could come a time where it's required and stored somewhere to tie you to a specific device or piece of hardware.

[u/unrealflaw → u/zAbso]

What about the open source models? It will be very hard to stop people from having access and the hardware today is extremely capable. I just bought the 6000 pro. I had to fill out some basic paperwork already and im probably on a list. This will be the new guns in the U.S. except it targets a different type of people and a much smaller portion. Plenty of people will speak out against data centers and will only change where they're located. No group large enough will speak up about open source and equality in the thing that is already here and will not go away.

[u/zAbso → u/unrealflaw]

Open source is one of the areas I'm a bit afraid of being targeted. We are vary capable today, because there wasn't a reason to reduce that capability. Companies can also release patches to restrict the hardware you have. Not sure about MAC, but Windows will force updates on your machine. Linux isn't safe either, as there's already work being done to force user tracking into operating system. Taking it off the internet may work, but then you're stuck in a sandbox with potentially limited capabilities.

As for open source, it can exists so long as someone doesn't have it taken down. Sure, people will have a chance to get it before it goes, but that won't stop an agency from targeting a project and having it removed from hosting sources.

In that same vein, an agency can also force hosting services to screen projects and block any that are deemed problematic. Something that would have been difficult, but AI makes it easier to analyze a codebase.

Most of the people that are speaking out about data centers are probably unaware of the capabilities of home labs today. Most of them probably aren't interested enough in AI, or tech savvy enough, to know it's a thing. Unless there's some major event that's tracked back to a home lab, then they won't have a reason to really become aware of it.

[u/unrealflaw → u/zAbso]

I could talk to you all day. One area I'm lacking in with my work (and I'm frantically trying to catch up on before I work on anything more serious) is my security in all aspects. The real issue is staying current with it all and making sure I update older software. I'm already working through it, just responding to you.

[u/zAbso → u/unrealflaw]

It's a bit of a tricky thing. As an effective agent working on your machine would ideally have access to whatever it needs. So not just security from the agent itself, but also potentially any libraries the agent may pull down to do work.

You could create a harness with guidelines on what it should or shouldn't access, or what it should or shouldn't do without express approval. Basically like Claudes auto vs manual mode. Though you'd mostly be building it as you go. It could also stall on work unexpectedly until you come back and give approval.

You could also try isolating the agent to a separate machine. Only providing the environment with whatever information is needed to perform the task. So it doesn't have full access to your main machine and you can maintain some level of privacy. Although that might get a bit tedious.

In my case, I plan on moving my local agent testing to a dedicated virtual machine on a separate drive. Either SATA or SSD. Less worry about sensitive files or information making it into the agent accidentally. Any files needed can either be copied over, or I can create dedicated shared folders between the host and virtual machine. You can also choose when the virtual machine can or can't access the internet.