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I for one think this doesn’t go far enough. We need Dune style ban on AI. Problem is enforcing it (eg GoF research ban and Fauci).
Going full Dune-style may be needed.
If you bomb chip fabs and kneecap production then it is enforceable.
But we would need truly scale AI that we would survive to reach such point.
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The ban on gain of function research in America is an important data point. Americans who wanted to do the research found ways to funnel money to China to do it there. An important question is whether the supreme leadership in China permitted this. My guess is that they didn't. Fauci just teamed up with people at a similar level in China who also wanted to do the research. If a high level Chinese researcher wants Chinese funding, they have to get into the details with their Chinese boss. What do they say? Perhaps "The Americans are scared to do this dangerous research, it gives us a chance to get ahead." My guess is that is way to lose all your funding. Getting ahead of Americans is good, but taking stupid risks, risks so stupid that even the Americans have declined, is very bad. If a high level Chinese researcher wants permission from his boss to accept American money, he can probably sell it as "Its just boring public health stuff." The level of scrutiny is lower for money being paid in than for money being paid out.
My guess is that Fauci had the money, but not permission. His Chinese counterparts had didn't have the money, so there was no point to asking for permission. But Fauci could give them the money, so they didn't have to ask for permission. Basically, big players, one level down from the top, routed around their own governments; both the American ban, and the ban the Chinese government would probably have imposed if requests for funding had pushed the issue all the way to the top.
I suspect that the Chinese over-reaction is partly a freak-out as the top Chinese officials realize that they have been by-passed, and panic at the implications of a problem caused by research that they would have vetoed if they had known the details.
My understanding of the way the world works is that if the top people in governments around the world agree to ban AI research, there is a chance that they will all do so sincerely. But that still won't work, because officials at the next level down control large sums of money and have considerable discretion delegated to them; they will just do AI research on their own authority. Another data point for this is the Iran-Contra Affair.
TLDR deep state evil mad scientists will do government backed AI research, even if Presidents and Prime Ministers are completely on board with banning it.
The supreme leadership probably thought they were supporting a bioweapons research program and conning the Americans into helping. Turned out they were sort of right, just not in the way they expected.
What evidence do you have for this? It sounds interesting, but is it more than idle theory?
It's just a guess. So yes, idle theory.
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