It does seem that regulation of AI, should it become necessary, basically has to take the form of regulating access to computer chips. Supercomputers (and server farms) are relatively expensive. You can’t make your own in your basement. Production is centralized at a few locations and so it would not be terribly difficult to track who they’re sold to. They also use lots of electricity, making it easier to track down people who have acquired lots of them illicitly.
I think it’s likely that the computing power required for dangerous AGI will remain at a level well above what most people or non-AI businesses will need for their normal activities, at least up until transformative AI has become widespread. So putting strict limits on chip access would allow goverments to severely cripple AI research, without rolling back the narrow-AI tech we’ve already developed and without looking over every programmer’s shoulder to make sure they don’t code up a neural net.
(A plan like this could also backfire by creating a large hardware overhang and contributing to a fast takeoff.)
It does seem that regulation of AI, should it become necessary, basically has to take the form of regulating access to computer chips. Supercomputers (and server farms) are relatively expensive. You can’t make your own in your basement. Production is centralized at a few locations and so it would not be terribly difficult to track who they’re sold to. They also use lots of electricity, making it easier to track down people who have acquired lots of them illicitly.
I think it’s likely that the computing power required for dangerous AGI will remain at a level well above what most people or non-AI businesses will need for their normal activities, at least up until transformative AI has become widespread. So putting strict limits on chip access would allow goverments to severely cripple AI research, without rolling back the narrow-AI tech we’ve already developed and without looking over every programmer’s shoulder to make sure they don’t code up a neural net.
(A plan like this could also backfire by creating a large hardware overhang and contributing to a fast takeoff.)