There Is A Serious Need To Protect American AI Development Programs
I worked in the high-tech development arena in “Silicon Valley” for many years. Consequently, I followed Marc Andreessen’s assent from the co-developer of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser with a graphical user interface, to entrepreneur and ultimately premier venture capitalist.
I respect his opinions very highly, so that is why I feel people outside of the X community need to hear what he has to say on this important subject.
Let’s assume, for discussion, that AI in 2024 is like atomic technology in 1943, that AI should therefore be handled like the Manhattan Project, and that the specific risk is that the Chinese Communist Party gains access to American AI.
And let’s use OpenAI as an example of an American AI R&D facility.
What counterintelligence capabilities does OpenAI have to prevent China from stealing our AI?
What you’d expect to see is a rigorous security vetting and clearance process for everyone from the CEO to the cook, with monthly polygraphs and constant internal surveillance.
Hardened physical facilities, what are called SCIFs (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities), US Marines or the equivalent as 24×7 armed guards, Faraday cages, and electronic countermeasures.
Alarms going off if someone carries so much as an Apple AirTag into the building. And someone very much like Boris Pash overseeing it all, interrogating and terrorizing people in all directions.
Remember, even WITH tight security, the Russians still got the atomic bomb from the US via their spies in the 1940s. The first Russian atomic bomb is said to have been “wire for wire compatible” with the American Nagasaki bomb, thanks to David Greenglass and the Rosenbergs. So to protect AI, you need even TIGHTER security.
Remember, this is a civilizational threat!
Is this what we see at OpenAI or any other American AI lab? No. What we see is the opposite — the security equivalent of Swiss cheese.
Chinese penetration of these labs would be trivially easy using any number of industrial espionage methods, such as simply bribing the cleaning crew to stick USB dongles into laptops.
I assume that all such American AI labs are already fully penetrated and that China is getting nightly downloads of all American AI research and code RIGHT NOW.
The conclusion is obvious, OpenAI must be immediately nationalized.
A day after this post was published the article below hit the news.