Sure, it’s likely government has better software than what the public has access to, but not by that much. Some NSA software has leaked before and it’s just “good” not mind bending. The best stuff often gets created by university groups collaborating with other universities. Government scavenges from these groups. Their research is published in journals before it reaches classified status. Of course there are some military groups and other directly funded groups but what they make is a small percentage of the best stuff.
What the government would have that public research would not is a) better quality training data (they have direct surveillance at the telco hardware level, not just what’s publicly scrapeable) and b) less need to artificially limit the AI so end users can’t abuse it.
I’d also disagree on the leaked NSA stuff being only “good”. Russia used it after it leaked to unleash the NotPetya malware, and that was the most damaging malware of all time.
The NSA buys most of their zero days. It’s no wonder why they have libraries full of them. Finding exploits is a bit different to developing stuff too.
I agree that they have the vast amounts of training data that they could put to use. I would not be surprised if they had a quantum computer that has broken RSA lower bit ranges by now. This was proven in academic circles to be possible and just needed scaling up. The same is true for using wireless emitting devices to see through walls.
I’m almost certain that they have full access into Tor now. I read a while ago that they monopolized many exit nodes. Snowden and others must be using multiple methods to conceal their true locations.
But do they have a self improving AI? I don’t think so. OpenAIs main goal is to create a GPT knowledgeable enough that it can help them improve their own models, AKA reaching the singularity - but with human intervention to prevent a run away effect. Transformer based models are not going to give us AGI. Once the researchers figure out what’s really needed then govt will adopt and scale it. Until then it’s just fancy closed source private versions of what is currently available.
I’m just thinking of prior examples, such as how the internet was technically a military intranet before it got into public hands, or how radio and lidar technology was leagues ahead in the military before it became public
Or the two advanced space telescopes the NRO donated to NASA. People so quick to disregard the government’s technical capabilities remind me of David Dunning and Justin Kruger.
Depends on what the objective is. The US government has had back doors into webcams, microphones, and social profiles for around two decades now. Snowden exposed the extent of their snooping in the early aughts and it was quite shocking. I doubt they’ve been resting since then. The stuff that gets leaked is usually the stuff they’re fine with people knowing about it. The Snowden leak was unprecedented, and we usually don’t get that deep of a glimpse into the intelligence community. By now they likely have complete and total access to anything, a Sneakers Black Box, if you will. No private tool can accomplish that. Keep in mind I’m talking about the NSA, not the FBI or local law enforcement.
Sure, it’s likely government has better software than what the public has access to, but not by that much. Some NSA software has leaked before and it’s just “good” not mind bending. The best stuff often gets created by university groups collaborating with other universities. Government scavenges from these groups. Their research is published in journals before it reaches classified status. Of course there are some military groups and other directly funded groups but what they make is a small percentage of the best stuff.
The best stuff gets invented in war time. WW1 and WW2 gave us great technological advances, like fertilizer, radar or the microwave oven.
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I imagine a lot of the best stuff also gets developed in public-private partnerships, like In-Q-Tel and the startups it supports on behalf of the CIA.
What the government would have that public research would not is a) better quality training data (they have direct surveillance at the telco hardware level, not just what’s publicly scrapeable) and b) less need to artificially limit the AI so end users can’t abuse it.
I’d also disagree on the leaked NSA stuff being only “good”. Russia used it after it leaked to unleash the NotPetya malware, and that was the most damaging malware of all time.
The NSA buys most of their zero days. It’s no wonder why they have libraries full of them. Finding exploits is a bit different to developing stuff too.
I agree that they have the vast amounts of training data that they could put to use. I would not be surprised if they had a quantum computer that has broken RSA lower bit ranges by now. This was proven in academic circles to be possible and just needed scaling up. The same is true for using wireless emitting devices to see through walls.
I’m almost certain that they have full access into Tor now. I read a while ago that they monopolized many exit nodes. Snowden and others must be using multiple methods to conceal their true locations.
But do they have a self improving AI? I don’t think so. OpenAIs main goal is to create a GPT knowledgeable enough that it can help them improve their own models, AKA reaching the singularity - but with human intervention to prevent a run away effect. Transformer based models are not going to give us AGI. Once the researchers figure out what’s really needed then govt will adopt and scale it. Until then it’s just fancy closed source private versions of what is currently available.
I’m just thinking of prior examples, such as how the internet was technically a military intranet before it got into public hands, or how radio and lidar technology was leagues ahead in the military before it became public
Or the two advanced space telescopes the NRO donated to NASA. People so quick to disregard the government’s technical capabilities remind me of David Dunning and Justin Kruger.
Depends on what the objective is. The US government has had back doors into webcams, microphones, and social profiles for around two decades now. Snowden exposed the extent of their snooping in the early aughts and it was quite shocking. I doubt they’ve been resting since then. The stuff that gets leaked is usually the stuff they’re fine with people knowing about it. The Snowden leak was unprecedented, and we usually don’t get that deep of a glimpse into the intelligence community. By now they likely have complete and total access to anything, a Sneakers Black Box, if you will. No private tool can accomplish that. Keep in mind I’m talking about the NSA, not the FBI or local law enforcement.