This is the "baby's first AI risk" tier of AI danger. There is no known upper limit to how powerful those systems get, and there might not be one.

Don't think "a smart guy". Think "project Manhattan and CIA put together, all in one server rack".

We're lucky to have "they can hack traditional systems" as an early warning shot. Clearly, it's wasted on many.

>If the biggest danger of LLMs is that they can hack traditional systems

This is doing a lot of lifting. If the biggest danger of LLMs is they could uplift bioweapon development, the situation is different. If the biggest danger of LLMs is they reach capabilities allowing for recursive self improvement, the situation is very different still.

> they could uplift bioweapon development

We've had LLMs for 5+ years, as well as Alphafold for 7+ years now. No novel bioweapon has been made with the technology that we're aware of. It's a farsical claim, there's no 21st century Aum Shinrikyo abusing the technology, after years of proliferation.

> they reach capabilities allowing for recursive self improvement

Again, you are predicating your entire argument on a hypothetical emergent behavior that we do not have any evidence for. I'm not worried about this whatsoever.

Ok. What's your stance on gun ownership then? And by gun, I mean naval guns.

My position is that anyone can own a cannon and shells, but you only get to fire it once before the feds step in.

Giving a naval cannon to the average person does not threaten humanity any more than giving them a gun or an LLM does. None of them are a panacea for anything.

A mass shooter wakes up in the morning and thinks: "I'll fire my naval gun once, then politely hand it to the feds..."

I imagine that he'd be pulled over by the cops towing his artillery into battle, first.

On what grounds? You just said everyone should be allowed to own artillery.

Sure, on the same grounds that you can own any gun. When you lug it into public and threaten ordinary people, you're liable to be followed, questioned or arrested.

It seems completely unhinged for civilians to have naval guns. You could level an entire neighborhood with one of those.

It's also completely unhinged to own a Shahed 136 or a ballistic missile, but both are fairly attainable and even legal within certain usages.

I don’t know what you mean man people obviously don’t own personal tomahawk missiles and that sort of thing. If you have a Shahed loaded with explosives on your property you will probably have to deal with LE

I mean, you don't put the explosives in until the end. Until then it's an "ironic hobbyist UAV" or whatever you want to call it.