“Data centers can be bombed with conventional munitions,” Stokes writes. (He’s not the first thinker to suggest bombings to stop powerful AI; in 2023, AI critic Eliezer Yudkowsky suggested that countries needed to be ready to “destroy a rogue data center by airstrike.”)
Of course, the China hawk isn’t numb to what such an attack would mean for the world.
“Bombing would cross a major threshold that heretofore has not been crossed in US-China relations,” Stokes continues. “Trying to think through the particulars of that will be especially important, in part because it will help policymakers… start to work backwards based on the unique nature of the technology, in the same way that in a past era, policymakers would learn about nuclear weapons.”
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Futurism links to the SCMP (which acts under the Chinese Communist Party’s censorship regime) which in turn is referencing a CNAS’ ‘online event’ and a ‘CNAS report published last week’, though there are no links to the online event nor the report.
I couldn’t find the online event, but here is the report for those who want to read it: Superpowers and AGI - How U.S.-China Competition Could Be Shaped by the Emergence of Artificial General Intelligence
The linked article is quoting Stokes, for example, saying,
“Data centers can be bombed with conventional munitions,”
and,
“Bombing would cross a major threshold that heretofore has not been crossed in US-China relations.”
I can’t find these and other quotations from the linked article in the original report (not even the SCMP is quoting these).
In the original report, there is no mention of a “US military strike against China” as the SCMP headline tries to make people believe.
In the original report, words like ‘bombing’ and ‘espionage’ - quoted by Futurism - don’t even exist.
Though the report discusses the U.S./China rivalry regarding AGI, it does so in a much larger and more diverse frame, including the common U.S./China competition with the Global South and other regions, what supposedly happened if and when any other country develops AGI first, and more things related to this topic. It is by no means a report “U.S. versus China” as the linked article (and the SCMP) makes people believe.
AI critic Eliezer Yudkowsky - which is also not mentioned in the SCMP - indeed suggested in 2023 that countries needed to be ready to “destroy a rogue da center by airstrike," but this was not directed specifically to China or any other country. He meant that as a possible (and, for now, theoretical) future measure in case a data center becomes dangerous for humans and humanity at some point in the future.
But you can perfectly combine all these fake quotations and half-truths to create a hopelessly distorted reality. This is pure propaganda aiming to sow division.
Decrepit war hawk says we should attack more countries! Misunderstands what AGI is, more at 6!
Strike with what? We can’t even protect our bases from Iran
Well technically iron dome has been wildly successful in protecting Israel and it has even been expanded upon since the conflict started, but it’s kind of an odd statement “How could he stab anything, he has no shield!”
Are you implying China wouldn’t strike back if the US bombed their datacenters?
More like “How could they win a fight when they can’t handle someone smaller who punches back”
Well, that’s more than a bit disingenuous to imply the USA has exerted it’s full military might on Iran, not to mention it doesn’t really capture the nuance that Iran’s military is basically the same as China’s: they supplied the armaments to begin with.
Nuance is when you say Iran is China’s peer in terms of military power? Sure thing bud
Nobody is saying that, but I definitely did say Iran’s military can be considered an arm of China’s, and that I mean with full seriousness and genuine belief.
Iran’s military is basically the same as China’s: they supplied the armaments to begin with.
Indeed.
“We threw a ton of shields at their arrows and it defended us well enough, but we are running out of shields and their cheap arrows are cheap to manufacture at scale…well be fine!”
I know, as a species, we’re desperately trying to start World War 3 on a bunch of fronts, but this is one of the stupider ones.
It’s propaganda. It’s not a serious consideration. It’s intention is to make you feel exactly how you felt after reading it.
We making anti-Obama posts now?
People might be more open to this post if they mentioned his current position at CNAS or even his former position as an Analyst in Institute of Peace, clearly an ill fitting role for the slopper, instead of some shit he did over a decade ago. And, a minor nitpick, he was an advisor for VP Biden (under Obama) and Congresswoman Amy Klobuchar, not Obama specifically.
With that out of the way, fuckin sloppers, man. They actually believe this shit or is Microsoft paying him up the wazoo?
Agreed, though that might be the way to actually get people who aren’t already opposed to stupid warhawks saying stupid warhawk things to apply some critical thinking to what’s being proposed. Because I’d say almost everyone can tell at a glance how stupid this idea is, but a lot of trump supporters wouldn’t apply the slightest bit of critical thought to something that came from trumps Institute of Peace.
We live in a time where faith in the DNC has never been lower and fascism in the USA has never been higher and I don’t think thats a coincidence. We shouldn’t tolerate smearing the DNC right before a major election.
You’re conflating Obama with an opinion from someone who was in his admin and is clout chasing.
Edit: With the current hardware crunch, vaporizing hardware is stupid af. Can we all just gtfo ourselves.
