Is there a specific reason to think so? It doesn’t look like any e-gold users were prosecuted, or like the grounds for prosecuting the operators of e-gold would generalize.
Bitcoin is designed specifically so there is no central agency to prosecute. So who would the government go after aside from the users?
Furthermore, if SIAI is involved with Bitcoin and Bitcoin undergoes some sort of legal investigation, I speculate SIAI might as well just because the FBI thought that they looked interesting. This feels like it would be a Bad Thing.
Generally speaking I don’t think the FBI investigates things “just because they look interesting,” and since SIAI (to the best of my knowledge) isn’t doing anything illegal that’s not particularly worrisome anyway.
and since SIAI (to the best of my knowledge) isn’t doing anything illegal that’s not particularly worrisome anyway.
Unless they are taken seriously, in which case there is most likely a law there somewhere that they could be said to be violating. They are, after all, trying to create a weapon of mass destruction. :)
What? No they aren’t, they’re trying to establish protocols within which a general artificial intelligence can be safely created. Whether a general artificial intelligence should qualify as a weapon of mass destruction is a different argument, but it certainly doesn’t qualify as one from a legal point of view, and if the SIAI safety/friendliness plan works, it shouldn’t from a practical point of view either!
but it certainly doesn’t qualify as one from a legal point of view
I’m not nearly so confident. The Powers That Be don’t need to be all that reasonable about these things. Because of the bit about the Power.
I expect a security oriented government body would be able to come up with as many ways for creating a superintelligence to be illegal as MoR!Harry could find ways to weaponise Hufflepuffs. Calling it a WoMD would just be one of them.
It’s conceivable that, at some point, building design frameworks for friendly artificial intelligences (or, more plausibly, artificial intelligences in general) might be made illegal, but it certainly isn’t illegal now.
Legality really doesn’t seem to be a huge factor in whether the Secret Service can inconvenience you. And if they raided a gaming company, I could see them plausibly raiding an AI development organization.
That said, I don’t see anything to suggest it’s particularly likely, but a government investigation, all by itself, is incredibly disruptive even if you don’t end up guilty of any crimes.
Edit: Response was written to original (brief) version of the parent (quoted below).
No they aren’t, they’re trying to create an artificial intelligence.
Encryption software has, at times, been legally declared ‘munitions’, the export of which can be a serious crime. Since an AI actually could be deployed as a weapon—and even a ‘Friendly’ version will be perceived to be causing massive destruction by at least one interest group—throwing that sort of label around would be comparatively reasonable. Not that I would make that designation. But I’m not a paramilitary organisation with relevant official status.
As for things that are not Weapons of Mass Destruction, try biological and chemical weapons (of the kind that actually exist). If you want to cause mass destruction use a nuke. Don’t have one of them? Use conventional explosives. If you want to do serious damage with a chemical weapon… pick a chemical that explodes. That phrase is broken.
I’d guess they would go after a few particularly high-volume, high-profit, high-profile traders like Mt. Gox, because this is the basic strategy used against Bittorrent.
It doesn’t look like any e-gold users were prosecuted, or like the grounds for prosecuting the operators of e-gold would generalize.
The government’s response to a currency or payment system that could be shut down by shutting down a single “point of failure” is not particularly informative for predicting its response to a payment system that does not have a single point of failure.
The government correctly perceives allowing the man in the street to transact business or earn money outside of the awareness and control of the regulated banking system to be a threat to its revenue stream and to be an enabler of crime and terrorism.
That the government is likely to spin or outright create laws to protect its interests is a different thing to “this activity is possibly illegal”.
I was given related advice while a cofounder of a startup venture. Forget whether you are legally in the right. If a powerful competitor is threatened they can sue on a vaguely credible premise they can destroy either your company or years of your life regardless of whether their superior lawyers foist it past the judge.
The letter of the law just doesn’t matter all that much if there is a power imbalance.
The government could if they wanted to go after individuals on counterfeiting charges. See also the remark by pjeby about banking laws (although as I said there, that seems hard to pin down). Unfortunately there are a large number of different federal laws about money and taxes, so it shouldn’t be that hard to find some federal crime to use. There may also be ways of tying in RICO charges which could be potentially used to then prosecute anyone using Bitcoin based on the most illegal activity of anyone using Bitcoin (so murder for hire, drug running, kidnapping, etc. from anyone on the network could potentially result in charges for anyone on the network.) In general, when the feds want something to be illegal and it involves money, they’ll find a way.
Is there a specific reason to think so? It doesn’t look like any e-gold users were prosecuted, or like the grounds for prosecuting the operators of e-gold would generalize.
Bitcoin is designed specifically so there is no central agency to prosecute. So who would the government go after aside from the users?
Furthermore, if SIAI is involved with Bitcoin and Bitcoin undergoes some sort of legal investigation, I speculate SIAI might as well just because the FBI thought that they looked interesting. This feels like it would be a Bad Thing.
Generally speaking I don’t think the FBI investigates things “just because they look interesting,” and since SIAI (to the best of my knowledge) isn’t doing anything illegal that’s not particularly worrisome anyway.
Unless they are taken seriously, in which case there is most likely a law there somewhere that they could be said to be violating. They are, after all, trying to create a weapon of mass destruction. :)
What? No they aren’t, they’re trying to establish protocols within which a general artificial intelligence can be safely created. Whether a general artificial intelligence should qualify as a weapon of mass destruction is a different argument, but it certainly doesn’t qualify as one from a legal point of view, and if the SIAI safety/friendliness plan works, it shouldn’t from a practical point of view either!
I’m not nearly so confident. The Powers That Be don’t need to be all that reasonable about these things. Because of the bit about the Power.
I expect a security oriented government body would be able to come up with as many ways for creating a superintelligence to be illegal as MoR!Harry could find ways to weaponise Hufflepuffs. Calling it a WoMD would just be one of them.
It’s conceivable that, at some point, building design frameworks for friendly artificial intelligences (or, more plausibly, artificial intelligences in general) might be made illegal, but it certainly isn’t illegal now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._United_States_Secret_Service
Legality really doesn’t seem to be a huge factor in whether the Secret Service can inconvenience you. And if they raided a gaming company, I could see them plausibly raiding an AI development organization.
That said, I don’t see anything to suggest it’s particularly likely, but a government investigation, all by itself, is incredibly disruptive even if you don’t end up guilty of any crimes.
Edit: Fixed from FBI to Secret Service.
Edit: Response was written to original (brief) version of the parent (quoted below).
Encryption software has, at times, been legally declared ‘munitions’, the export of which can be a serious crime. Since an AI actually could be deployed as a weapon—and even a ‘Friendly’ version will be perceived to be causing massive destruction by at least one interest group—throwing that sort of label around would be comparatively reasonable. Not that I would make that designation. But I’m not a paramilitary organisation with relevant official status.
As for things that are not Weapons of Mass Destruction, try biological and chemical weapons (of the kind that actually exist). If you want to cause mass destruction use a nuke. Don’t have one of them? Use conventional explosives. If you want to do serious damage with a chemical weapon… pick a chemical that explodes. That phrase is broken.
Well building an AI to take over the world would arguably qualify as plotting violent overthrow of the government.
I’d guess they would go after a few particularly high-volume, high-profit, high-profile traders like Mt. Gox, because this is the basic strategy used against Bittorrent.
The government’s response to a currency or payment system that could be shut down by shutting down a single “point of failure” is not particularly informative for predicting its response to a payment system that does not have a single point of failure.
The government correctly perceives allowing the man in the street to transact business or earn money outside of the awareness and control of the regulated banking system to be a threat to its revenue stream and to be an enabler of crime and terrorism.
That the government is likely to spin or outright create laws to protect its interests is a different thing to “this activity is possibly illegal”.
I was given related advice while a cofounder of a startup venture. Forget whether you are legally in the right. If a powerful competitor is threatened they can sue on a vaguely credible premise they can destroy either your company or years of your life regardless of whether their superior lawyers foist it past the judge.
The letter of the law just doesn’t matter all that much if there is a power imbalance.
The government could if they wanted to go after individuals on counterfeiting charges. See also the remark by pjeby about banking laws (although as I said there, that seems hard to pin down). Unfortunately there are a large number of different federal laws about money and taxes, so it shouldn’t be that hard to find some federal crime to use. There may also be ways of tying in RICO charges which could be potentially used to then prosecute anyone using Bitcoin based on the most illegal activity of anyone using Bitcoin (so murder for hire, drug running, kidnapping, etc. from anyone on the network could potentially result in charges for anyone on the network.) In general, when the feds want something to be illegal and it involves money, they’ll find a way.
EGold was a for profit corporation with operations conducted from Florida. Bitcoin is an open source project.