AI Suggested 40,000 Possible Chemical Weapons Within Six Hours
Data sharing is becoming more common. It opens up new avenues of research, which I fully support. This allows researchers to view your data and allow them to use it in their research. However, this also includes toxicity datasets as well as toxicity models. It’s not easy to find a solution for this problem.
We glanced over towards Silicon Valley and saw OpenAI, a group that released a top-of the-line language model called GPT-3. It can create sentences and text almost as easily as a chatbot. You can use it whenever you like, but you will need to obtain a token to access the model. They can also block your access to those models at any time. This could be a good starting point for sensitive models such as toxicity models.
Science is all about sharing information, data, and communication. This idea is antithetical to restrictions. However, it is possible to take a responsible account of who uses your resources.
Your paper states that “[w]ithout becoming overly alarmist, it should serve as an alarm call for our fellow colleagues.” What is the message you want to send to your colleagues? What do you think being alarmist looks like?
We want researchers to be more aware of possible misuse. You are responsible for avoiding misuse of chemicals when you first start your career in chemistry. Machine learning is not like that. It is not possible to guide the misuse of this technology.
This awareness could make people more aware of the problem. It’s then at least discussed in wider circles, and can be at least something we monitor as we improve our toxicity models.
While I do not want to suggest that machine learning AI will start creating toxic chemicals, there are going to be many new biochemical warfare agents right around the corner. Do you know what happens when someone clicks a button? Chemical warfare agents appear in their hands.
I’m not trying to sound alarmist by stating that AI-driven chemical warfare is possible. It’s not my belief that this is the case right now. It’s unlikely that it will be anytime soon. It is a possibility, but it is becoming more likely.
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