Comment by foxglacier
17 hours ago
What exactly are you worried about? OpenAI/etc. gaining too much power? If they use it, the government can stop them. If you worry about the government, isn't it better that than rando terrorists? Seems similar to the early days of nuclear and rocket technology. It took stupendous amounts of money and smart people. It was barely accessible to many countries let alone people.
> What exactly are you worried about? OpenAI/etc. gaining too much power?
Yes. They have already shown to have no scruples when it comes to making profit and to have little to no morals.
> If you worry about the government, isn't it better that than rando terrorists?
In my country the largest terrorist attack was almost certainly financed by Iran and caused roughly one hundred deaths. This number pales compared to the thousands who died during the latest, US-backed military coup, a move that relied on a doctrine that the US has never stopped asserting [1].
And those morals I mentioned earlier from AI companies? They do not apply to me because I'm not a US citizen. So no, I do not think the US government is the "seal of quality" you think it is.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
I don't think the comment you're replying to said that the U.S. govt. is a seal of quality, at all. They kind-of implicitly concededed that trusting a government with that power is highly sub-optimal, but better still than allowing it to get into the hands of terrorists. Which is a very real issue and a nontrivial point of tension. Like, I'm sorry, maybe I'm reading into this too much, but I personally see the "the government is not the seal of quality you think it is" as a rude and even patronizing misinterpretation happening far too often in discussions, and as needlessly diverging attention from the crux of the problem.
I want to push back on "better than getting into the hands of terrorists being a very real issue".
I am currently in Germany. In the 21st Century roughly 60 people have been killed and 160 injured in ~40 terrorist attacks, most of them perpetrated with cars or knives [1]. In comparison, the US' war in Iran has costed Germany 2.781 billion dollars in fuel costs this year alone and the US government has publicly announced its plans to interfere in German politics partially by funding far-right activities [2].
My point being: the probabilities of terrorists shaking the world order with AI are rather low, seeing as even the most successful attacks in this century have been performed with the simplest of technologies. In contrast, the probability of the US flexing its power irresponsibly are rather high, seeing as they have been doing it for a couple years now and are, in fact, doing it right now.
As far as I'm concerned, and from an evidence-based, day-to-day point of view, the "AI in the hands of terrorists" is an irrelevant concern while "the US may abuse its power" is not.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Germany
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/15/germany-warn...
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The US government has shown, time and time again, that they will always side with large corporations. Having them as the last backstop is not reassuring.
Have you considered the possibility that the AI labs could actually become more powerful than the US government precisely because they control this technology?
Universities, at least, should be given access
> OpenAI/etc. gaining too much power? If they use it, the government can stop them.
Has the government stopped Google and Apple? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49964791
I guess the objection to closed source slurries releasing world-shaking mathematical proofs, from a conservative libertarian standpoint, is that it's inherently dangerous to individuals whenever access to information or technology is concentrated too much in one place, whether that's government, private equity, religions, cults, terrorist cells, or anything else.