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fc417fc802today at 4:52 AM1 replyview on HN

Not in the way you seem to be thinking, no. Nuclear weapons can be banned because they are prohibitively expensive to research and build. You can't reliably hide a nuclear program.

In contrast, rewind to the early 1800s and there is zero hope of a ban on the R&D of small arms being effective in the long run. The only thing it might maybe ensure is that no legitimate actors that fall under your jurisdiction are involved in it.

Basically I think that current trends point to an eventual situation where world changing research doesn't require anything more than consumer level compute. Pandora's box has already been opened.

> We don't have pocket nukes

Bit of a tangent but we do, actually. At least depending on if you consider an artillery shell to be pocket sized. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_artillery

This one is a bit long to fit in a pocket but you could certainly sling it over your back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W45_(nuclear_warhead)


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metalcrowtoday at 5:24 AM

> Not in the way you seem to be thinking, no. Nuclear weapons can be banned because they are prohibitively expensive to research and build. You can't reliably hide a nuclear program.

Isn't that true of AI as well? Data centers are very big and very expensive.

> Bit of a tangent but we do, actually

Sure but not like the movies, these don't destroy cities. But the metaphor isn't accurate anyway: nukes don't get worse. The actual idea here is preventing the frontier of AI from advancing.

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